


Roger's Eleven

by starthief



Series: Roger's Eleven [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Belly Rubs, Body Worship, Daddy Kink, Dom!Bucky, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling in love with your parole officer, Fat fetish, Feeding, Feeding Kink, Feedism, Heist AU, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Modern AU, Ocean's 11, Orgasm Delay, Pining, Porn (Eventually), Porn With Plot, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Stuffing, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chub kink, chubby chaser, fat appreciation, parole, sub!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-10-12 15:26:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17470127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starthief/pseuds/starthief
Summary: Fourteen years, two months, and seven days. That's how long James Buchanan Barnes was incarcerated. It was supposed to be fifteen years, but he got off for good behaviour. There had been one little catch, though.(Ocean's 11 inspired-mostly based off the idea "What if Danny couldn't fit back into the suit he had when he got out of jail." I lifted the plot directly from Ocean's 11 and Infity War, because writing plots suck. The exception is this one's a lot more gay and weight gain centric.)





	1. Bucky POV

 

Fourteen years, two months, and seven days.

That's how long James Buchanan Barnes was incarcerated. It was supposed to be fifteen years, but he got off for good behavior- and getting in the good graces of Warden Rumlowe from giving him head every third Saturday hadn't hurt either. His lawyer came in three days before, and as soon as Bucky saw the look on her face, he knew what she was about to say. There had been one little catch, though. 

“You committed forgery, larceny, and embezzlement, James. Unless you want to serve the full time, this is the only way I can get you out.”

“ _ Alleged _ embezzlement. That was never proved. And what the fuck use is being free if I have a pig tied around my fuckin’ leg?” 

In the end, though, he'd agreed to all of Carter’s terms, signed the paper, and 72 hours later he was standing outside of DC Federal Prison carrying a lunch bag full of magnets and wearing a suit that had fit him better 14 years and thirty pounds ago. 

He looked at the address in his hand. He had to be there by 4 p.m. to check in with his parole officer.  _ Parole _ . He wanted to laugh. It was going to make the plan a hell of a lot more difficult, that was for sure. Two years he was going to have to meet with some cop every day at 4 p.m. If he was thirty minutes late, a warrant would go out for his arrest. 

It was 2:13 p.m., and he had just over an hour and forty-five minutes to set things in motion before he was as good as hogtied.

He'd sewn a fifty into the lining of his suit. He could tell that the security guards had missed it from the way his cuff crinkled. They'd confiscated his Swiss army knife, of course, but the thread he'd used was weak, and he ripped the seam with his teeth and pulled the bill out. 

A brief walk to the end of the block told him the Radio Shack had closed, but there was an ATM next to the boarded up window. His accounts had all been liquidated and closed over a decade ago, but a quick flourish of one of his magnets rendered him with five dollars in dimes. He dialed an old number, one which he was relieved to hear was still in service.

After four rings, she picked up. “Romanov.”

“Nat.”

“Holy shit, you out already?”

“Almost. Listen, I need a ride, a phone, and an ID. I'll pay you back-”

“Don't even mention it. You at the jail? I'll be there in ten.”

The last thing he wanted to do was stand out, so while was waiting he used his fifty to buy new jeans, a t-shirt, a light jacket, and a baseball hat from a thrift store in a strip mall.

Nat pulled up at the moment he walked out of the store, and he popped his collar and stepped in. 

“James.” She hugged him over the console. “It's good to see you.” She punctuated her statement with a gaze, lingering over his middle. 

“You too. I see you aged like a wine, honey.”

She chuckled, putting the car in drive. “Thirty-five isn't that old, sweetheart.” 

He nodded to the dash of her Tesla roadster. “You've done well.”

“We've come a long way since college.”

“What do you now, petty crime?” He wrinkled his nose, although he could never imagine Natasha doing something so boring.

“Espionage. I get by under the radar as long as I don't keep anything longer than I need to.” She winked. “Where are we headed?”

He gave her the address. “I have an appointment at four, so I have to hurry.”

“Sure. You got a ride to that?”

“Nat, I don't want to impose-”

“Nonsense. The car is yours. I was thinking silver isn't my colour, anyhow.”

“I don't have a license.”

“So don't get caught.”

They arrived a moment later, and she paused before shutting off the car, “Listen, James, I don't know what you're up to, and I don't want to know any more than must. But if you need a cat-”

“You'll be the first to know. Thank you, for everything.”

“Don't mention it. I owe you.” She left the driver's seat, and immediately hailed a cab.

 

At 4 p.m. exactly, Bucky walked into the iHop on the address. He greeted the hostess. “I'm looking for Rogers, party of two?”

The host nodded. “Right this way.” He lead him toward a corner booth, where an overweight and elderly man sat, wearing a police uniform. Bucky smirked. This would be easier than he thought. 

Once reaching the booth, the host turned and gestured to his right, where a blond man about Bucky's age sat at a table alone, sipping black coffee. 

He looked up as Bucky took his seat. He was handsome, strikingly so, and Bucky couldn't judge his height while he was sitting, but he could have easily been over 6’2”. He wore a simple black tee over cargo pants, and it was tight enough to reveal the contours of his thickly muscled arms, his strong pecs and narrow waist. 

“Mr. Barnes, I'm glad you could join me.” He gestured to the steaming plate of French toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs before Bucky. 

“It's afternoon.”

“It's never too late for breakfast.”

Bucky hadn't eaten since lunch, and he gratefully tucked in to delicious spread before him. “I didn't expect you to be so casually dressed, being on-duty.” Not to mention young. He'd thought they'd stick him with whatever underpaid parole officer they had lying around.

Rogers shrugged. “I'm ex special forces. Unless I have to wear fatigues, I'm not much for uniforms.” He took another sip of his coffee. Bucky went back to eating, but he noticed that Rogers kept looking at him.  _ Determined to not take his eyes off me for a second, _ he assumed. 

“So, this is how I figure it’s gonna go. I’ll give you my number, and you’ll hand me your phone. I’m going to install an app on it so that I can always see where you are. If I feel like you’ve gone to a sketchy place, I’ll text you, and you respond within ten minutes and convince me that you’re being a law-abiding citizen. We have a set meeting here, at 4 p.m. every day. If you’ve been extra good, maybe I’ll relax on the meetings and we can go to once a week, or even a month. But for now we stick to this. Copy?”

Bucky was already sweating. Ex special forces? What the fuck? Clearly this man was used to a position of authority, and used to everyone obeying that. Well, that wasn’t gonna wash with Bucky. 

“Uh, yeah, might have a bit of a problem with that.” Rogers paused, and Bucky rushed to clarify. “I need to get a job, and the one I’m applying for requires that I travel a lot. So it might be hard for me to make a meeting every day if I’m not around.”

Rogers nodded, taking in the information. “Normally I wouldn’t be too keen on that, but we encourage employment. How far are you going to be travelling? A few towns over?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I was looking into a position in Wakanda.”

Bucky was very aware of the austere rules within his parole, one of the most important being that he was confined to the District of Columbia. 

Rogers just stared at him from over his coffee, peering over his black shades. “Wakanda?”

“It’s a country in West Africa,” he explained.

“I’m familiar. I’d need more details about the employment.”

Bucky nodded, letting out a breath. This one was gonna be a bitch, that’s for sure. “Of course. I don’t  _ have _ the job yet, but assuming I do get it, is this-” he gestured between himself and Rogers “-gonna be problem?”

The ex special forces agent didn’t reply for a moment, setting down his empty cup and checking something on his smartwatch. Finally, he spoke. “Not at all. In some cases, we allow parole prisoners to go outside the state. I’ve never seen a national transfer, but I’m sure it’ll be allowed, providing you adhere to the laws of both countries-” Bucky made a  _ go on _ gesture with his hand.  _ Yeah, yeah, we know, I’ll have to stick my nose up your ass for the next twelve months _ “-and that I accompany you, of course.”

Bucky nearly choked on his scrambled eggs. He overcompensated by swallowing his entire mouthful, and his eyes watered. Once he could breathe again, he wheezed out his response. “ _ Accompany  _ me?! To Wakanda?!”

Rogers nodded. “Of course. That’s the only way they’d allow it, I’m sure. That won’t be a problem…” He titled his shades down and examined Bucky with his ice blue eyes. Bucky forced himself not to swallow or show any sign of submission. “Will it?”

 

Bucky sat down on the bench next to Clint. “We have a problem.”

Clint looked over, but didn’t catch Bucky speaking in time to read his lips, so Bucky repeated himself. “Yeah, I’m out of bird seed,” Clint replied, frowning down at the empty bag in his hands. The legion of pigeons around them cocked their heads, as if sad at the loss of food.

Bucky sighed and pulled the ham and cheese out of his sub, handing the bread to an ecstatic Clint. “No, the fucking pig wants to ride my ass all the way to Wakanda.”

Clint laughed. “Ride? Get it? Piggyback?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “This is serious. How the fuck am I supposed to steal 2.8 billion dollars-” Clint elbowed him “-with him up in my business? And he’s not even a regular cop, he’s ex special forces. I don’t like this.”

Clint shrugged, and turned to the birds, who were all too happy at Bucky’s offering. “So you had to have known parole wouldn’t be easy. Even if you were on probation, they’d be paying special attention to you.”

Bucky sighed. “Yeah, but I’m not doing this for me, Clint. It’s for her.” Clint couldn’t see him, as he was too busy looking at the birds. Bucky thought for a moment more before Clint turned to face him. “You’re right. This changes nothing.”

Clint grinned. “Excellent. So. Who’s the driver?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking helicopter for this one. You have connections there, don’t you?” Clint nodded. “Perfect. You take care of that. Meanwhile, I have to find a decent hacker. And an explosives guy.”

“Nat knows someone,” Clint added with an air of casualty that was betrayed by Bucky’s knowledge of their history. 

“You’re together again?” Bucky demanded.

Clint shrugged again. “Sometimes we are, sometimes we aren’t. She just looks at me and I can never say no.”

Bucky laughed. “Man, nothing’s changed since college.”

Clint grinned and poked him in the gut. “Some things change.”

Bucky bristled. “Okay, okay. Jeez. I just got out of prison. Give a guy a break, won’t ya?” 

Clint promised to work on the driver, and mentioned he’d ask Nat to talk to the explosives guy she knew. Bucky had his own plans for the night to look for a hacker, and maybe a safe cracker while he was at it. Natasha’s gift of the car had been all too kind, but he needed a place to stay, so he decided to call in an old favour with the Langs. 

Cassie answered the door. “Hey, Cassie!” She looked at him blankly. “Yeah, you won’t remember me. You were, uh, only two when we met. What are you, ten now?”

“I’m fourteen!” the girl corrected. 

“That’s right. Hey, is your dad home?” Scott appeared in the doorway behind her. “Hey, ant-man!” Cassie raised her eyebrows at the nickname. “Your dad used to study bugs in college! He had an ant farm the size of a closet.”

“Insects,” Scott said to deaf ears. “Hey, Buck. What are you doing here?” His voice betrayed his anxiety at Bucky’s appearance, and Cassie seemed to get bored with the conversation and walked away. 

“I’m planning a job.”

“I have a family now, Buck-- I can’t… I’m real glad to see you’re out of prison, but I can’t do anything you need me to.” 

Bucky nodded. “Alright, that’s fine. I just need a room while I’m in America. The place looks really nice, I like the wing you added out back.” 

Scott nodded and came outside. “Sure. 12-24 are all vacant, you can have any one. We have free Wi-Fi too.” He lowered his voice. “23 has a VPN and Tor already installed, if you’re looking to hire a hacker.”

Bucky grinned, and followed Scott downstairs to the inn’s office, where he procured the key. “That’d be perfect, thanks. But, you know, you’re the best hacker around.”

“Untrue,” came a voice from behind Bucky. He spun around and saw an attractive woman with dark hair enter the office. 

“Bucky, this is my wife, Janet. Janet, this is…”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she finished, holding out a perfectly manicured hand that Bucky took. “I wondered when you’d come around. You know, I can’t thank you enough for what you did for Scott. I know that was before my time, but I also know he wouldn’t be a free man today if it wasn’t for you.”

Bucky smiled, looking away. “Yeah, well… this should about make it even. Besides, there are no debts between friends.”

“So, I hear you’re looking for a hacker?” 

Scott grimaced and looked over at the house, where Cassie’s silhouette could be seen against the drapes in her bedroom, dancing to some music. “Bucky, I gotta ask, why are you planning a job so soon after getting out?”

Bucky’s vision unfocused, and he clenched his fists, trying to tamper down his rage. “It’s for Rebecca.” 

Scott nodded somberly, but Janet looked to him for explanation. “I’m sorry, Rebecca is…?”

“My sister. It’s a long story.”

“So, a job. I assume that means you’re planning on stealing something?” 

Bucky looked to the camera in the corner, but he assumed it was safe. Scott would only employ people he trusted. And if he trusted Janet enough to marry her, Bucky did too. “Yes. From Donald Thanos.”

“The medical billionaire, Thanos?”

“That’s right. He lives in the States this time of year, but he keeps all his money in a vault in his Wakandan estate. We’re going to steal it.”

Janet nodded. “I know that asshole. I’m in.”

“Honey--” Scott warned.

“What? You don’t want to do it, that’s fine. But I know everything you do, and more. As long as I get my cut of the money, I’m in.”

Bucky nodded. “You’ll get your percentage.” They talked out a few more details, and then Bucky went to his room to spend some time coordinating the rest of his plans. 

A little before midnight, his stomach grumbled, and he looked ruefully down at the rounded slope. It had crept up on him-- both the weight gain and the fourteen years. He’d spent nearly every moment plotting. He was angry, and he already knew the mistakes of letting his rage blind him. This time, he’d hone it. It was his weapon, a tool at his disposal, a device for him to use. He’d planned every aspect of this job, and now it was all- albeit imperfectly- coming together. He was going to drain that fucking bastard dry, his friends were all going to get rich, and he’d-- 

His stomach grumbled again, more insistent this time. Well, he’d get a midnight snack. Maybe some ice cream to celebrate. And then tomorrow, he’d get back into college shape.


	2. Steve POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets a new assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update every Saturday. I'm not sure how many chapters this will have, but I'm guessing somewhere close to 10.

Steve woke up in a cold sweat. The afterimage of his mother’s face was hovering in the darkness above him, a gaunt phantom of the nightmare he’d had. 

He grabbed his flashlight from its home on his nightstand, making his way to the bathroom with only the light from the LED illuminating his path. 

His phone rang, making him jump. He picked it up from his dresser, flipping it open. “Rogers.”

“Morning, sunshine.” He checked his watch. It was just after 0400. “You sound like you’re awake.”

Steve stifled a yawn. “I’m always awake for work, boss.”

He could imagine Fury’s smile. “That’s what I like to hear. I want you to come to my office in thirty minutes. I’ve got a new assignment for you. How do you feel about parole monitoring?”

“Isn’t that usually Sam’s job?”

“Yeah, but he’s on vacation starting tomorrow. I’ll need full attention for this one. If you’re not up for it, I can call Maria or Phil.”

“No, I’ll take it,” Steve automatically insisted. Fury had been babying him ever since the incident last month. If he thought he was up for a real project, than Steve was more than willing to be taken off light duty. “How long do I have to prep?”

“I’ll give you his file when you get here. You can do the extracurricular stuff on your own, but you should meet with him today. He’s released at 2 p.m., and we don’t want to give him too much time to get any wise ideas.”

“Yes, sir.” Steve realized he was standing at attention, but it was useless, since Fury couldn’t even see him. He tried to relax the set of his shoulders. He could feel a headache coming on.

Fury told him a few more details over the phone, and after they hung up, Steve changed into a fresh shirt and some cargo pants, arming himself and tucking his badge into one pocket. He arrived at Fury’s office ten minutes early. He let him in anyway, and briefed him on the rest of what he needed to know. Steve began to build the profile in his head with his photographic memory.

_ James Buchanan Barnes. 35. Incarcerated at 21 when he was arrested for several charges. There were ten of his classmates implicated, and his lawyer made a bargain with him to lessen his sentence if he would give them up, but he insisted that he acted alone. Loyal. Intelligent. Creative. Authoritative. Dominating.  _

_ And…  _

_ Hansom. _

Steve had seen the class of prison Sam worked with. They were often young white men just out of a juvenile penitentiary, drug users from broken homes. Steve saw the look in their eyes, lost and looking for an anchor. Some found it. Most didn’t, and they ended up right back in prison. Most of the prisoners who violated their parole did it within the first 72 hours. And if there was a violation at all, Sam always caught them. 

_ 55 percent of parolees return to prison within five months after their release _ , his brain supplied. 

As he sipped his coffee in iHop, waiting for Barnes to arrive, he couldn’t get the image of his mugshot out of his mind. 

In 2005, Steve was in Afghanistan. In 2005, Steve’s mother was still alive. In 2005, Steve still believed in the intrinsic altruism of man. 

In 2005, James Buchanan Barnes was arrested for three counts of forgery, one of larceny, and one (alleged) embezzlement. He had long chestnut hair, down to his shoulders, piercing steel blue eyes, and an easy king of charismatic smile. Steve could tell a lot about a person from their mugshot. He wondered what kind of a person smiled. 

He supposed he was about to find out, as the host lead a tall man toward Steve’s table. Steve had chosen it specifically for its location between the two exits, and from his seat, he would be able to catch Barnes easily if he tried to run. He’d ordered the man a large stack of french toast with all the sides on a whim. It was always what his mom would give him after a bad day of school. Steve wanted to give Barnes a chance. 

_ Walk it off. Eat your bacon, drink your juice, and try again tomorrow.  _ The American legal system was supposed to promote second chances. 

He didn’t meet Barnes in the eyes until he took his seat. “Mr. Barnes. I’m glad you could join me.”

What he’d assumed about Barnes had been correct. He added more traits as their interaction continued. However, the man before him was clearly not the boy who was arrested fourteen years ago. It was hard to tell underneath all the layers he wore paired with his neatly trimmed beard, but from the number painted next to Barnes in the mugshot (6’0”), Steve guessed that he must have put on about fifty pounds since then. 

Barnes quickly finished his food within ten minutes, clearly used to meals that size, and Steve’s stomach fluttered. 

Steve Rogers was a pro at compartmentalizing. When he was discharged with honours and started working for the DCPD, he’d only made a few rules. The most prominent was  _ don’t ever let your feelings interfere with your work. _

Intuition, however, was good. Steve knew from his training that the brain’s subconscious could work faster than the conscious brain could catch up on. Sometimes, the subconscious would pick up on subliminal information- not enough to make sense to the conscious brain, but enough to give the body a response. Intuition had saved his life on a number of times. He had the ability to tell whether a person was trustworthy with startling accuracy. Above all else, it’s what made him an excellent agent. It was based on logic and evidence and results.

But feelings were messy. Feelings were the chemicals in a brain going haywire. The feeling Steve was getting just then- the butterflies in his stomach, the airy feeling in his head, the sweating in his palms and the dryness on his tongue- those would only cloud his judgement and make him mess up. Steve didn’t get attracted to people on the job, and he  _ certainly  _ didn’t get attracted to convicts. 

He told his feelings to shut the hell up so he could get back to work.

“I was looking for a position in Wakanda.”

Every instinct within Steve screamed all at once, an alarm set off in his brain like the demon running his head had flipped a switch labeled ‘PANIC’. Wakanda meant that Barnes would have to go through an emigration process, maybe dual citizenship. Wakanda meant that he would be 9,000 miles away.Wakanda meant that the DCPD wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him. Most importantly, Wakanda meant that  _ Steve  _ wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him.

And as much as he hated it, there was a demon in his head wearing a big heart on his chest that said that he really wanted to keep an eye on Barnes. Or two. Specifically, on his round, soft tummy. The demon also might want to reach out and touch him. 

Steve specifically resolved himself to never listen to his head-demons. He looked at the notifications on his apple watch, stalling for time. “In some cases, we allow parole prisoners to go outside the state. I’ve never seen a national transfer, but I’m sure it’ll be allowed, providing you adhere to the laws of both countries, and that I accompany you, of course.” There was no doubt in Steve’s mind that Barnes intended on doing something illegal overseas. That wasn’t probable cause by any means, but Fury trusted Steve, and he was sure he’d let him take Barnes to Wakanda. Fury had given him the case, after all. He knew it was special. So Steve would just have to go with Barnes, pretending to be his oblivious parole officer, and meanwhile he’d be investigating whatever crimes Barnes would commit. Probably drug related. What other reason would the man have for wanting to travel to Wakanda?

Barnes expressed his extreme distaste at the idea of the two of them travelling together, and Steve had to agree. His mind was racing through all the problems this would cause, all the inconveniences. He’d have to oversee Barnes’ acquisition of a passport (obviously his, if he had one at all, wouldn’t be up to date), two plane tickets, and two hotel rooms for the duration of their time in Wakanda. Whether that would end with Barnes’ arrest or the end of his parole, he couldn’t say. He wished for the latter, but assumed the former. 

Steve had a long night of work ahead of him, and he could tell that Barnes was ready to leave as well. When the waiter came to give him the check, Barnes offered to split it- an act which took Steve by surprise, because surely he couldn’t have that much money freshly out of prison- but Steve had insisted, and at his approval Barnes ordered a coffee for the road. 

A sugary, heavy-cream, white-chocolate-peppermint-flavoured-mocha, calorie-laden coffee for the road. Barnes left in a fancy new Tesla, and Steve swung one leg over his motorcycle, trying not to stare so obviously. 

Barnes’ number was in his phone, and he could practically feel it burning in his pocket. He had an app that told him where the man would be at any given moment in the day, and he swore he wouldn’t abuse that power.

However, later that night, when he had a mountain of paperwork on the desk before him and it was getting hard to keep his eyes open, his soft bed behind him calling, Steve found it harder to resist temptation. 

He pulled out his phone and unlocked it, noting the time. Just a little after midnight. He opened the app and found Barnes’ location, which, unhelpfully, was only listed in the app as an address. He entered the place into Google maps, and quickly discovered that it was a doughnut store. Certainly nothing inherently evil about that… and yet so thrilling. Steve felt himself stirring in his pants. 

He reminded himself that he had at least another hour of work before him. This was no time to be thinking about Barnes, with his beautiful eyes and his soft jaw, his wide back and his soft middle, eating doughnuts at 12:09 in the morning for no goddamn good reason except they were good and he was out of prison. Now was not the time to be thinking of a powdered doughnut, disappearing bite after bite into his mouth, past those soft lips… a sprinkle of powder falling onto his thick thighs, right where his the overhang of his belly almost brushed against his lap… 

Now was not the time, yet Steve found himself reaching for the lotion and tissues anyway.

Feelings were gonna be the fucking death of him.

 

He woke the next morning to the insistent tone of his alarm. He’d finished his paperwork last night, and it actually seemed that succumbing to his urges allowed him to focus better afterward. He might not have gotten visions of Barnes out of his head all night, but at least he’d filled out the seven forms requesting a travel visa and a business trip. He’d fallen asleep in the same close he’d worn yesterday, and he changed his shirt and gave himself a quick shave before leaving. He wondered what Barnes would do with his hair, now that he was out of prison. Would he grow it out? Would he keep it short? Would he grow a beard? 

He briefly pictured him with green hair up in spikes, and then shook himself out of the nonsensical train of thought. 

They had another meeting at 4 today. It was snowing lightly, so Steve opted to take his Jeep instead of the Harley. It was unlikely that the snow would stick, but he didn’t particularly feel like having the icy particles sting his face on the way to work, so he enjoyed the comfort of his heated car.

Fury was, understandably, less than ecstatic about Barnes’ plans to head to Wakanda, but with some convincing, he came around. “Listen, Nick, I’m not much on it either. But he’s gotta only have two things in mind; either he’s trying to start a job in Africa, or he’s genuinely making an attempt at being an honest citizen, and it just happens to take place on another continent. If it’s the second, we wouldn’t want to discourage it, and if it’s the first, then it’s better we allow it and I go with him than if he would try something under our noses.”

Fury glowered at the floor for a few moments, but eventually he nodded. “Alright, if you think that’s best. I’ll send through the paperwork.” As Steve was about to leave, Fury called to him again. “Steve- hey, you met with him yesterday. What was your impression?”

Steve would never get used to calling his c.o. - _ Boss, he reminded himself, you’re not in Afghanistan-  _ by his first name, or vice versa. But Fury had insisted, and no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel, he knew it was a sign of trust between himself and the captain. 

He sighed, and paused. He wasn’t sure how much information he wanted to share. “He seemed… different. I don’t know. Determined. He was certainly driven, that’s for sure. And that’s not something I see much in ex cons.” 

Fury caught the tone of his voice, and mistook it for reverence. “Refreshing?”

“Concerning.” Steve tapped the doorframe as a way of saying goodbye, and went back to his desk. 

The approval for the forms came in a surprisingly quick six hours later, and Steve filed them. He’d share the news with Barnes, providing he’d heard from the ‘company’, as it were, about his hiring. A little after 3:30, his phone buzzed with a text. 

JBB:  _ Where to this time? _

Steve checked Barnes’ location. He was a distance away from the iHop they’d met at yesterday, and he didn’t want to make it too difficult. 

SGR:  _ You decide. _

This in itself was another test. Steve was curious about the location Barnes would choose. It’d say a lot about him, certainly. He couldn’t say he was surprised when the man sent him an address for a diner. He was pleased too, a little bit. He tried to reassure himself it was just because Barnes had picked a domestic location, and nothing as nefarious as a bar or a private address.

_ No, it’s because you want to see him eat again, _ his head-demon whispered.  _ You got a taste of it yesterday and you can’t wait for more. You want to watch him, you want to see what he’ll order, you want-- _

He quickly snapped out of it, and stood, grabbing his keys and heading out the door. He’d have to leave now if he wanted to be there before Barnes and have the advantage of picking their table.

 

He didn’t anyway, and when he arrived, Barnes was already eating in a booth. He would have preferred a seat where he could keep an eye on all the exits and weak points of the building, but this would have to do. At least it was near a window where he could view the entrance. 

He took his seat across from Barnes, who look up from his double cheeseburger. 

“I ordered you a water. I didn’t know…”

“No, that’s okay. I just had lunch, thank you. I’m not hungry.”  _ Don’t be so polite, _ his mind yelled at him. “Let’s get to business. Have you talked to your associates in Wakanda?”

Barnes half-rolled his eyes, and Steve couldn’t tell whether it was at his use of the word  _ associates _ or his disregard of small talk.

“Yes, I did. It’s a go, I have the job. I’m looking to leave next week.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve already made all the arrangements. We’re flying in one of our personal jets.”

“Aw, come on, I wouldn’t want to put the PD out any,” Barnes interrupted. 

“Nonsense, I insist. It’ll be much-” Steve clenched his jaw, carefully choosing his next words. He could already tell from the look in Barnes’ eyes that he’d guessed exactly why Steve wanted to choose the transportation.

“Really, it’s no trouble. Wouldn’t want to put the taxpayer’s good money to use on me flying across the pond.” He paused, taking a considerable bite of his cheeseburger- which Steve just spotted included bacon- and washed it down with a thick gulp of chocolate milkshake. “I’ll purchase my own plane ticket this afternoon, and you can just tell the security for the plane that you need to sit right next to me, flank me with a battalion of cops or whatever.” Steve rolled his eyes, but he was glad playing games was over. Clearly, Barnes wasn’t a man for a great deal of implications, and Steve appreciated that. “I’m sure they’ll be fine with it. Then, when we get to the hotel, you can put an ankle monitor on me or whatever.”

Steve pulled out a few documents from his briefcase. “You’re not required to wear an ankle bracelet. While on Wakandan soil, however, you must adhered to these rules.” He handed the paper to Barnes.

He cleaned off his greasy fingers before scanning the document. His eyebrows raised, and Steve could guess which part he was at. “I’m aware they have some unconventional laws including alcohol and curfews.” 

“Unconventional? More like fucking crazy.” He slid the paper back across the table, not bothering to put it in Steve’s outstretched hand. He turned back to his food, finishing his burger and starting in on the sweet potato fries. “But whatever, that’s fine. I’ll be there for business anyway.” His phone buzzed, and he took it out and frowned at it for a moment before tapping out a response. Steve looked out the window and sipped his icewater, trying not to be rude.

The waitress arrived a moment later. “Are you ready for your pie now, sir?” She asked Barnes.

“Yes, thanks, hon.” He flashed her a dazzling smile, charm oozing out of his every pore. Steve tried not to gag. 

“Anything for you, sir?” She asked, turning to Steve. 

“Uh, yeah, I’ll take a slice of pie too.”

“What kind? We have apple, blueberry, pecan, and key lime.”

“Pecan, thanks.” His head-devil must have some bizarre control over him, because Steve had no intention to eat the pie. He’d have to have a stern talk with himself later.  _ Or a stern wank,  _ his head supplied.

They went over a few other documents while Barnes finished his milkshake and they waited for their pies. Steve discovered that Barnes had ordered apple- his personal favourite, but he was glad he hadn’t ordered it as well- and he began eating, while Steve pushed the pie around on his plate with his fork. 

“You know what, I think I overestimated myself when I got this. I just had lunch a little bit ago, and I’m not really feeling this,” he mentioned as casually as he could, hoping Barnes wouldn’t take his actions as some kind of submission. “You want it?”

Barnes made a huffing sound, but lifted his shoulders in a kind of shrug, even as he was eating his own. “Pecan’s my favourite,” he commented as he accepted the plate, sliding it over. Steve had to physically stop himself from letting a smile spread across his face.

As Bucky continued eating, Steve felt like the restaurant had suddenly gotten a thousand times hotter. He began shifting, and his light shirt and jeans suddenly felt too restricting. For entirely other reasons that the man in the opposite booth, he was sure, as it had been clear he’d been uncomfortable in his clothes the whole meeting. Steve wanted to leave the diner, take his Harley on a long ride to clear his head. “I’d, uh..” he murmured, trying to tear his eyes away from the way Barnes’ mouth curled around a fork. He cleared his throat and tried again when he realized the man was looking him in the eyes. He stood. “I’d better get going. I’ll text you tomorrow to coordinate the rest of the. Uh.”

The waitress arrived with the check, and Steve was grateful. He hadn’t been entirely sure how he was planning on ending that sentence. She looked unsurely between the two men before Bucky spoke. 

“I’ll get it,” he said with a light groan as he reached across the booth to grab the check. 

“Are you sure?” Steve asked reflexively. “I could-”

Bucky flapped his head at him. “Nah. I ate all the food anyway. Besides, you paid yesterday.” He put a bill in it and handed it back to the waitress, winking in their general direction. 

Steve nodded and left, cheeks burning. He must’ve been winking at the waitress, not Steve. He’d been flirting with her earlier. There was no way he’d meant it to land on Steve. But, he made it feel special. He made it feel almost like a date.

Except it wasn’t a date. It was a mandatory meeting, set up by the U.S. Government, and Barnes was a felon, and Steve was the appointed official to set him back on the path to righteousness. There was nothing romantic about it.

_ Nothing at all, _ Steve reminded himself as he pressed down his erection with the heel of his head, shifting his car into reverse and backing out of his parking space. 


	3. Bucky POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team comes together and they get on a plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has some restrictive-eating-like thinking. Don’t worry, it will be remedied soon, but the paragraph is marked with an asterisk in case you want to skip.

There was a knock on the door to Bucky’s room. He opened it, and a tiny brunette with fingerless gloves jumped into his arms. “Bucky!!” she exclaimed happily. He recognized that voice, even if she’d moved too quickly for him to see her face.

“Wanda!” She’d only been a senior in high school when he was a sophomore in college, but she’d been endlessly valuable to their team, providing them information since her dad was a professor. 

She stepped back from the hug and her expression turned serious. “I hear you’re planning a job. I want in.”

“Wanda, I don’t want…”

She stopped him with a finger on his lips. “I know, you don’t want my life to spiral into crime. Well, too late. I’ve acquired a new set of skills since then.” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. Wanda had always had an aspiration to become a psychologist, and he figured she must have reached her goal. She was always going to do great things, he knew. He swallowed. Sometimes he reminded her too much of what Rebecca would be like if-- 

“Come on, please?” She continued. “I can at least distract the guards. And, you’ve never met my brother! He can get through any safe. He’s the fastest in the world, I’ve seen it. And we’re a package deal.”

He grinned and kissed her cheek. “Of course, honey. We’d be honoured to have you on the team.” 

She stepped inside so they could catch up, and he sent Clint a quick text.

_ JBB: Got a safe cracker. How are you on the driver? _

_ CFB: Good to go. His name is Peter. He usually flies jet, but we should be good with helicopter.  _

Just as the notification buzzed, he got another text from Natasha. 

_ NAR: Tony is good to go on explosives.  _

Bucky smirked. It was all coming together. 

 

Finally, the weekend came. He’d purchased his plane ticket and set the necessary information to Rogers. It was set for two weeks in the future, hopefully enough time for them to get the rest of the crew.

Bucky’d had to sit through two more meetings with Rogers. God, he really got on his nerves. He’d preached the whole ‘path to righteousness’ thing so many times, Bucky was starting to think he believed it himself. He couldn’t decide which that was more idiotic, or just sad. Although, he was starting to lean toward sad. 

It was hard to get a good read on Rogers, especially when he wore those damned mirror sunglasses all the time, but sometimes Bucky would catch him looking sorrowfully off into the distance. There was something in him like a knot, just waiting to come undone. He might have come off like a prick at first, but even Bucky had to admit he’d been compliant so far, going along with everything. There were already eight seats reserved on the February 6 flight to Wakanda- the preliminary members of Bucky’s team. They were all sitting randomly, so as not to attract any attention, and Rogers had confirmed that he would be sitting right next to Bucky. 

His fourteen years of planning didn’t quite count on him having to evade an ex special forces agent the entire time he was in Africa, but he was trying to work it into the plan somehow. They’d arrive, and he’d get an excuse to be alone. Maybe Wanda could help-- hell, if she was Rogers’ type, it wouldn’t be only Thanos’ guards she could distract. 

There was one last member of the team he needed to recruit in America. Muscle. 

God, had he fucked up last time. He’d learned the importance of picking a good team. This time, everyone on the team had come highly recommended from someone he already trusted with his life. Back in college, Bucky and his friends had been a bunch of skinny nerds, and like a moron he’d hired some muscle from the dark web. Bucky wished he’d never clicked on the link for Helmut Zemo. He’d had no loyalty beyond the $700, and when it had come to the police threatening incrimination, he’d given Bucky up quicker than he could say ‘I want my lawyer’. 

Bucky would do the thug work himself. It would be manageable- he was certainly heavier than he’d been in college. Years of lifting (and maybe more bulking than cutting) in prison had given him a set of muscles that could rival perhaps even Rogers’, but after some consideration, he decided it would be hard to orchestrate everything and worry about whoever might get in their way. 

_ JBB: Nat, I’m really stuck on muscle. I’ve asked everyone else and they have no connections. _

_ NAR: Sorry, this kitty’s specialty is my stealth, not my claws.  _

_ JBB: Nah, it’s okay, I’ll keep looking. _

_ NAR: Want me to ask Tony? _

_ JBB: I mean, I don’t really know him. _

Natasha didn’t respond, and Bucky was left on read for the next six minutes. He rolled his eyes fondly. Nat’s motto was practically ‘ask forgiveness, not permission’. But at this point he was desperate, and if a friend of a friend’s friend was all he had, then it would have to do.

_ NAR: He knows a guy, a Scandinavian dude who’s like 6’3” and 220 lbs of muscle. He says they’ve worked three jobs together. _

_ JBB: Get me his number. We’ll see if our Scandinavian prince wants to go to Africa.  _

 

Bucky sat on the window, preparing for takeoff. Two seats behind him were Natasha and Tony. Across the aisle, Wanda and her brother Pietrov sat together. Behind them were Janet and the muscle man (who was just as impressive as Tony claimed) whose name was Thor. Clint sat with Peter a few seats ahead. Bucky had contacted a businessman in Wakanda who he knew had a vendetta against Thanos, and T’Challa had assured him they would have a jet waiting ready. The plan wouldn’t take place for a whole week, but that would give Vision- the eyes Bucky had inside Thanos’ estate- and him enough time to coordinate those plans. Surely he could get Rogers out of his way long enough for them to pull the job, and then it didn’t matter what happened after that.

Bucky hadn’t mentioned his post-heist plans to the rest of the team. Whenever anyone had mentioned anything on the subject, he’d been quiet.  _ Just make sure you get round-trip tickets,  _ he told them.  _ After this job is done, you’ll have enough money to  _ buy _ the airport if you want.  _ Only Natasha had picked up on it. The night before the flight, the two of them had dinner in his room at Lang Inn. She’d put a hand on his arm.  _ You’ve planned this for fifteen years, James. What are you going to do when it’s over? _

Those words echoed in his mind as he looked out of the window. He took in the sight of DC beyond the edge of the landing strip. He was certain it was the last time he’d be seeing America for a while. If he came back at all, it’d be in iron. 

But it didn’t matter. He took a deep breath as the sound of the engines changed. Just as the  _ fasten seatbelt _ sign came on, Rogers took his seat next to Bucky.

“Cutting it kind of close, aren’t we?” Bucky asked. He hadn’t seen him since their meeting yesterday.

“Oh, I’ve been on the plane,” he responded casually. “I was in the cockpit with the pilot. We’ve reached an understanding.” 

Bucky looked over to where Rogers was heavily armed beneath his civvies and nodded contemplatively. 

“Aren’t you going to put on your seatbelt?” Rogers asked, having already done so. 

“Hell yes,” Bucky muttered, jumping to action. For a moment he was worried when he pulled the belt over himself, but he needn’t have been. It fit with plenty of room to spare.  _ I might be chunky now, but I’m not  _ fat, he assured himself. He dug his nails into the armrests and gritted his teeth, positively  _ not _ looking out of the window.

Ten minutes later they were in the air, and a stewardess came by. “Can I offer you gentleman something to drink?”

“Water,” Bucky immediately demanded, before Rogers got a chance to speak. He didn’t order anything, anyway.

The stewardess returned with the glass, and Bucky placed in on the tray of the seat in front of him, watching it nervously. 

“Scared of flying?” Rogers asked. Bucky couldn’t tell if his tone was teasing or not.

“Never been,” he answered through clenched teeth. 

“Really?” Rogers looked out of the window, and his gaze turned distant. “I can’t count the amount of times I’ve flown.”

“Tell me,” Bucky begged. Rogers’ eyes flicked to his own, but he must have realized his need for distraction. 

He sighed. All the times Bucky and him got together, they never talked about themselves much.  _ Well,  _ Bucky figured.  _ We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Now might as well be a start. _

“I joined the army when I was seventeen.”

“What, your ma kick you out?” Bucky quipped.

His face went cold.  _ Jesus, just for cutting him off? _ Bucky thought. 

“No. She died of tuberculosis.” 

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Bucky could tell he’d touched a nerve. He really did want Rogers to distract him from the ground four miles below them. “It fucking sucks, losing a family member. My dad, he had this rare condition. Died when I was three. I never really knew him.” Bucky shrugged, and Rogers moved his eyes to Bucky’s face again.

“Hereditary?”

Bucky nodded. “My sister has it. She’s… she’s in a coma. She needs this special shit to live, and it’s hard to get. It’s hard, knowing someone you love that much won’t be around forever. So… I get it, Rogers.”

“Steve.”

“Hm?”

“My first name is Steve. You don’t have to keep calling me ‘Rogers’ all the time.”

Bucky nodded. “Well, you can call me Bucky.” He put out his hand, and Steve took it. 

“Not James?” 

“Nah. No one’s called me James since college.” He shot Steve a smile. “Anyway, ignore me being an asshole. Go on about flying.”

Steve took his hand back, and Bucky chastised himself for the way he missed the warmth. His hand had felt good, delicate and long. He had artists fingers.  _ Shut up about his hands, _ he yelled at himself.

Steve started into a story about Afghanistan. He only told the stark details at first, but Bucky stopped him. “Nah, come on, tell it right. You’re giving me a story, not a mission report.” He could tell the man was unused to this type of conversation, and maybe he was a little hesitant to share what could be top secret information, but eventually they both relaxed into it. Steve was a good storyteller, and even if the topic was a little grim, Bucky found himself relaxing more as it went on. 

Steve was an attractive guy, and his voice was deep and smooth, easy to listen to. In another life, Bucky could easily picture them becoming friends. It was a shame they were separated on such either extremes of the law. 

“So I’d lost my commanding officer, I was standing in the middle of unfamiliar territory with nothing but a gun, and bullets were flying all around me. All I could think was  _ I’m never gonna find this secret base _ , and then this kid appears in this doorway. I’d thought the area was abandoned, but she motions for me to come in. I ducked and rolled my way over to her house, and I came inside. I was worried she wouldn’t speak English, but she asked me if I was looking for the ‘secret oasis’. I was completely confused, but I just said yes and went along with it. Then she took me out the back and through the town, to this hidden basement under a well I never would have found on my own. It turns out, the ‘secret base’ I was supposed to be looking for were a bunch of Afghan sympathizers who were being punished by their own country for wanting freedom. I looked at all of them, crowded into the basement in the desert, and I just thought to myself that they looked the same. There was no difference between them and the people I was fighting above ground. They were all just people, trying to live and breathe without some foreign soldier stealing their oil. I couldn’t give up their position, no way. So I found my way back to HQ and requested to be transferred to France. I always felt like my captain knew, like maybe he sent me there as a test. But I couldn’t do it. I worked in France for the next three years, and then I got sent home and took this job after my friend suggested it.”

Steve had more credit that Bucky’d given him. Clearly he’d had his own fight between what was right and what was necessary, and maybe Bucky had even misjudged his sense of duty. Not that he was about to admit that. Still, the man had opened up to him and calmed him down, and now they were flying smoothly over the ocean. Bucky felt like he should say something meaningful in return.

Just then, the stewardess returned and eyed Bucky’s empty glass. “Can I get you a refill?”

“Yes, 7&7 please. Thank you.” He flashed her a grin. 

Steve shot him a look. “I think you mean a nice can of 7 Up.” The stewardess paused.

“No, I don’t. We’re not on American soil, are we? And we’re not in Wakanda either. As long as I’m in the air, I’m a free man. And I’ll have Seagram’s if I want.” He nodded at the stewardess and closed his eyes, putting his hands behind his head and grinning. He knew his argument wasn’t flawless, but he didn’t hear anything further from Steve. A moment later, the stewardess returned and set his drink down. Bucky hadn’t had a real drink in years, and he sipped it slowly, enjoying the taste.

“You know what goes great with whisky? A nice roast beef sandwich.” 

“Mm,” Bucky said in agreement. “They got a menu around here?” 

Steve handed him a laminated piece of paper from the back of his seat. “I think dinner is served in a half hour.”

Roast beef did sound good, and it was indeed on the menu. “You gonna join me?” he asked Steve, raising the glass in his direction.

“I don’t drink on the job.”

“Come on, we’re not going to be there for ten more hours. You’ll have plenty of time to nap and everything before we leave.” He offered the menu.

Steve took it, turning to the entrees page. “Maybe I’ll just have some dinner.” 

When the stewardess came, Bucky ordered his roast beef with a side of mashed potatoes, and Steve ordered fettuccini alfredo with iced tea.

Bucky expected the food to be small and cold, but when he opened the lids of the boxes the stewardess delivered, he was delighted at what he saw. The roast beef was steaming, and the bread was a large sourdough bun, cut in some artisanal way. There was a side of mashed potatoes with gravy that looked delicious, along with some steamed broccoli that was fresh and seasoned perfectly. He groaned at the first bite, and Steve looked over at him.

“Sorry,” he apologised, hand covering his full mouth. “I forgot to eat lunch.” He hadn’t noticed how hungry he was until he dug in. He’d been so busy packing everything and getting to the airport on time that he’d completely missed eating, and his stomach was not happy with him. 

* _ Maybe I should do that more often, _ he thought to himself.  _ I did want to go on a diet, if I want to be able to continue fitting into airplane seats.  _

He didn’t intend on finishing all of his food, but it was so good that it was done all too soon and he found himself feeling vaguely unsatisfied.

Before he could think about it too long, Steve handed him his own box of food. Bucky looked at him questioningly. 

“Ugh, I’m full. You can have the rest if you want, it’s really good.”

Steve hadn’t been exaggerating. The sauce was thick, creamy and homemade, definitely not from a jar. The noodles were thick and buttered well, and there were a few shrimp sprinkled throughout the dish that added the perfect accent. It looked like Steve hadn’t touched it at all, as most of the portion remained. On the side, there was a piece of garlic bread that tasted as if it came straight from a five star restaurant. 

The pasta was heavier than Bucky expected, and by the time he finished it, he was feeling almost uncomfortably full. The seat belt of the plane was digging into the underside of his belly, and he loosened it, turning back and forth in his seat to try and get more comfortable. He really wished he could put his feet up and recline a little, but he wanted to put off falling asleep until they got closer to Wakanda. 

He could sense Steve watching his squirming, and he got a little uncomfortable, realizing that he’d eaten almost two full servings of dinner. 

“You can unfasten your seatbelt,” Steve mentioned, pointing to the sign on the ceiling above them, which was turned off.

“Thank god,” Bucky muttered, immediately unbuckling it and letting himself breathe a little deeper. He wondered if Steve would notice if he undid his button.

The stewardess appeared, taking their empty boxes and glasses. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“A blanket, please,” Bucky requested, and when it came, he used it to cover himself and surreptitiously undid his button underneath. He turned to face the window, getting as comfortable as he could. The next week was going to be unbearable enough, so maybe having some sleep to pass the time wouldn’t be a bad thing. 


	4. Steve POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plane lands and Steve catches some feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve has some issues with PTSD and depression that he isn’t facing. Nothing major, but he’s having a lot of conflicting feelings and some of his internal monologue might be triggering.

Steve was certain he was going to regret opening up to Bucky. He never anyone about his time in Afghanistan- not even Sam. But the man had looked so nervous, wild eyes flicking between the window and the cup of water on the tray before him. Steve felt a little better afterward, like his confession to a criminal eased his mind. And by the time Bucky was eating, Steve’s mind was off everything else entirely.

Bucky was sleeping under a light blanket now, and Steve was pretty sure he’d had to unbutton his tight pants underneath. 

He balled his hands into tight fists, resolutely looking at the headrest in front of him. He wouldn’t look at Bucky. For one, it’d be creepy to watch him while he slept. And for two, he knew he’d just want to draw him. 

He’d wanted to an artist, once upon a time a lifetime ago. He’d had talent; or, at least, that’s what everyone kept telling him. But then his mom had passed, and in his grief, he took a different path.

He hasn’t drawn in years, now. He couldn’t even remember the last time he picked up a pencil. His hands felt itchy, and he wished he had some paper with him now. He wanted to sketch out the delicate contours of Bucky’s nose, his curving mouth, the week-old stubble that was growing out on his soft cheeks and chin. He missed his oil pastels; he knew exactly which one he’d use for Bucky’s eyes. It’d have to be a mix of timberwolf grey and periwinkle, with maybe a dash of ultramarine for the lowlights. Ultramarine was his favourite colour, and he’d never seen it reflected so well in real life as it was in Bucky’s eyes.

Too late, he realized he’d been staring at the convict’s face for some time. He scowled, staring out the window at the inky black sky instead, watching the clouds pass by. A yawn took him by surprise, and he realized it might not be a bad idea for him to have a nap too. 

 

\--

Steve usually woke all at once, roused from a restless and fitful sleep by his insistent alarm. Today though, he became aware of his surroundings slowly, surfacing from a distant dream. 

“Steve,” the voice said again, and he realized it might have been calling him for a while. 

“Hm?” He opened his eyes and saw Bucky sitting next to him. He’d been resting his head on the brunet’s right shoulder. 

“We’re in Wakanda.” 

Steve looked out the window, but he only saw the grey of the tarmac and some hills beyond. The other passengers of the plane were making a line in the aisle. Steve and Bucky gathered their things, and Steve guided Bucky out into the aisle first with a hand on his shoulder. Bucky rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. 

They exited the plane into the airport, and Steve took in the signs around them, large white letters in Xhosa with the English in parenthesis below. They stood to the side of the baggage claim for a moment, taking in the colourful crowd around them. After they found their luggage, Steve checked his smartwatch. The time back in DC would have been 3 a.m., but the time difference in Wakanda put them at 10 a.m. 

“Okay, check-in at the hotel is in three hours. Until then, do-”

Bucky cut him off. “I could go for some brunch, I guess.”

Steve frowned. “But we just ate.”

Bucky waved him off, picking up his suitcase and hoisting his duffle over one shoulder. The movement made his shirt lift up a little, and Steve spotted a slice of soft tan skin. “That was in a different timezone. It doesn’t count. Plus, the sooner we have breakfast, the easier it’ll be to get on Wakandan eating schedule.”

Steve shrugged and began to follow him through the terminal, before realizing he was supposed to lead. He spotted a map of Birnin Zana at the tourist booth and picked it up, searching for a food symbol. “This place looks like a cafe. Want to try it?” He angled the map in Bucky’s direction.

“C’mon, Steve, let’s just go into the city. We’ve got three hours to kill. Let’s sight-see a little, yeah? We don’t need a map.” Steve folded it and put it in his back pocket anyway. Bucky laughed. “Well, I’m gonna go wander. I assume you have to be in close proximity to me to make sure I don’t go stealing a statue or anything, so why don’t you tag along?”

Steve would’ve preferred taking their baggage to the hotel first, and then getting his bearings before exploring unfamiliar territory, but considering why he assumed Bucky was there, it would be in their best interests for him to keep an eye on him.

He set his jaw and nodded. Bucky turned to him for a moment, his face serious. “Listen, I know neither of us wants to be in this situation, but let’s make the best out of it, okay? Just try to enjoy a city you’ve never been to before.”

Steve had to admit it was comforting following Bucky on the sidewalk. He walked with such an air of confidence that he could’ve fooled anyone about never having been outside the States. Steve knew that he was showing weakness, giving up authority and letting Bucky make the calls, but it was at times like these when he missed being a soldier. When he had had a commanding officer, all he needed to do was carry out his mission. Everything had been so black and white, just comply with the mission because he was on the right side and it was for the good of the country… until nothing made sense anymore. He’d felt undone since then, set adrift. He carefully scanned the alleyways between the buildings as they walked. In every shadow, down every path, there was danger. He’d never felt so out of control of a situation.

Bucky elbowed him to get his attention, and he had to physically stop himself from taking a defensive position.

The brunet pointed to a cafe with some outdoor tables. “Hey, how about there? That looks like they might serve breakfast.”

Steve shrugged, then nodded. “Yes. Let’s go there.”

Bucky bit his lip, and Steve could tell that he was amused by his discomfort. 

Fortunately, the waiter spoke English, and Bucky ordered for both of them while Steve picked a booth. In a moment, Bucky joined him, noting their position between the exits.

“So, after we get settled, when will you meet with your superior?” 

Bucky shrugged, sitting down. “Our first meeting isn’t until after the weekend. I wanted to give myself enough time to acclimate.” 

Steve could tell that Bucky didn’t want to talk about work. And he couldn’t blame him. On the other hand, he didn’t feel like he could just pretend that they were in Wakanda on vacation, either. He was making an honest effort to get his mind off work, really, but he wasn’t sure what subjects are appropriate to bring up with the parolee you’re supposed to be keeping from getting involved in illegal activities. “What did you order?” is what his mouth decided on.

The corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “I’m not really sure. Something called the ‘tourist breakfast’.”

Steve’s eyes went wide. “I swear, if you ordered us a bunch of bugs…”

“Relax. It’ll taste like chicken.”

The waiter arrived, carrying an immense platter with at least six plates of food. It was arranged like an appetiser, alike foods grouped together with sauces in the centre. 

“Holy shit. This is… a lot.” 

Bucky raised one eyebrow. “Oh, this isn’t even the entre.” 

Another waitress walked up behind the first, placing some type of flaky pastries with berries inside on the table. Once Steve was sure no other courses were about to arrive, he sighed and forked a few chicken-wing-like-objects and one of the pastries onto his plate. He needn’t have worried about eating a decent portion of the platter himself, however, as Bucky seemed intent on finishing the rest himself. He began piling two plates high, the other pastry on one, and the second filled with bacon-wrapped-sausages, small corn muffins, bread with mandazi and tahini spread, onion ring bean things, an omelette with french fries inside (of all things), and a few fish strips. He ate with incredible enthusiasm, exclaiming his opinions on every bite, and offering forkfuls to Steve’s reluctant mouth.

“Steve, I’m serious, you gotta try this.”

“I don’t know what’s  _ in _ it,” Steve insisted, eyeing the bean rings. 

“Come on, you can’t just go to another country and eat things you can find at home. Live a little!” Steve didn’t move to open his mouth, and Bucky shrugged and ate it himself. “Whatever. Your loss.”

Steve definitely didn’t see it as his loss, though. Or, at least, his loss was Bucky’s gain. And he’d much prefer watching the brunet enjoy all of the various fried and fattening items than trying a few himself. He was having a hard time focusing enough as it was, but then Bucky started  _ talking _ about it.

“God, all of this is so delicious. I gotta be honest, I didn’t know how much food this was gonna be when I ordered it. I mean, it did say it serves a party of five, but you know. These fish are so good, holy shit.” He paused momentarily to swallow a sip of orange juice. “I tell you what, we didn’t eat like this in prison. I got so tired of eggos and oatmeal. That’s the real crime. Bland foods. Now  _ this _ -” he pointed to the sausages “-is real seasoning. God.” 

Steve figured he must not have hated the eggos and oatmeal so much, to gain weight like he did. He could feel his cheeks warming, and he tried to keep his thoughts at bay while he finished his own (admittedly tasty) scone. 

It wasn’t long before Bucky was shifting in his seat, brow furrowed as he adjusted his clothes. “Ugh. I really am getting full.” He had only a few muffins and some fish left on his plate, and there was still about two more servings left on the platter. “I hope they let you take stuff in a box, because a have a date with the rest later.”

Steve made up his mind, handing his remaining chicken nuggets to Bucky. “Think you have room for this?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard the man at all. He didn’t know why, but he really wanted to watch Bucky push himself, see how much he could eat if he really tried. 

Bucky paused for a moment, and Steve was worried he’d refuse, but he just forked the nuggets onto his plate, adding some of the other remaining items with it. “Sure, what the hell. Vacation, right?”

“And you have to make up for lost time in prison,” Steve added, surprising both of them with his comment. 

Bucky didn’t seem to mind too much, though. He just nodded and kept eating. “Amen to that. I mean, I know we’re supposed to be punished in there, but it’s bad enough without me wanting to cry over their tiny-ass lunch. We used to trade for snacks--” he cut himself off quickly, realizing who he was talking to. Steve tried to be as nonchalant as possible, hoping he would continue. Bucky hadn’t really mentioned his actual time in jail before, and Steve was a little curious. “Oh, hell, you probably know. Cigarettes and stamps, shit like that. I had this friend who used to slip me packs of ramen and tuna for dot cards.”

“Where’d you get dots?” Steve asked, surprised. He hadn’t seen the inner workings of prisons much, and he was suddenly curious about where Bucky fell on the hierarchy of things.

“A couple of guards. I kept to myself mostly, and everyone left me alone. I did some favours for the guards, and they got me dots.” He shrugged, and was he blushing? “They were just trying to do their job. I know they’re not bad guys.”

“It fucking sucks, the way it works,” Steve spat out before he could think about how he shouldn’t be insulting a system to someone he was supposed to rehabilitate. “I used to believe in that bullshit, but it turns out the people in power all just pretend to be righteous to hide their racism and prejudice. We’re supposed to reform criminals, not shove the underprivileged into a hole and tell them not to many any noise.”

Bucky looked him in the eyes for a few moments. “If you feel that way, then why are you a cop?” 

Steve focused on the patterns of the wallpaper, beige and green shapes crossing over each other. “Because I still believe in justice. I know it’s stupid, and if feels like everywhere I look people in power are just abusing it. But I  _ want _ to believe in the good of man, the strong protecting the weak.”

“Me, too,” Bucky said softly.

Now it was Steve’s turn to ask a question. He wouldn’t have, except Bucky didn’t seem to have many reservations against speaking his own mind. “So how come you got arrested?” 

He couldn’t quite name the look crossing Bucky’s face, something like regret or annoyance. “It’s… fuck. It’s not always black and white.”

“I know that, Buck. I’m not a goddamn child. I know what I’m coming from here, okay? I know a cop ready to tase you at any given moment isn’t exactly someone you’d expect to understand. But I’m not judging you, I promise. I’m no patriot.” 

Bucky searched his eyes. He must have found what he was looking for, because he answered. “I believe in the strong helping the weak too, Steve. And you’re right. People in power only help themselves. Sometimes we have to take what we know is right, even if it puts us on the wrong side of the bars. And I can live with that.” His voice was even, strong and insistent. “There will always be good guys. And I’ll always do what I have to to make sure they’re safe, even if that means I’m not one.”

He continued eating, and they sat in silence for a while. Steve almost felt closer to the man across the table from him. It felt good to know that even here, in the middle of a place he’d never been, surrounded by strangers speaking a strange language, that he could find a piece of hope. It almost made him sad to know that when all this was over Bucky would have to go back on the other side of those bars.

Bucky finished and they split the bill. They still had an hour and a half before check in, so Bucky lead the way as they walked around the city. It was maybe 65* outside, warm and cloudy with a gentle breeze. Bucky was hot enough to take off his light jacket, tying the sleeves around his waist. He wore a green henley underneath, and his soft belly pushed gently against the fabric, exaggerated by his jacket. He wore blue tinted sunglasses, looking all at once perfectly at place in the exotic city and perfectly American. They reached a fountain with an ornate statue, and they paused there for a moment, sitting on the edge and watching children chase some chickens. 

All at once, a thought hit Steve, that he wished his mom could be here. She’d always wanted to travel. He got his painting from her, although her specialty was landscapes. Every Saturday when Steve was in elementary school they’d go to a different park, and Sarah would set up her easel while Steve climbed trees. She always talked about far away places; Rome and Amsterdam, Tokyo and Berlin, even though she’d never left New York. Steve had thought of that, when he was told he’d be going to Afghanistan. He’d wished he had someone to write letters to.  _ Hi mom, I’m in Kabul. You should see the mountains.  _

He vaguely entertained the idea of taking out his phone and snapping some pictures. The notion had escaped him, upon arrival. He’d been so focused on watching Bucky that he forgot about watching the scenery.

But god, was Bucky ever a part of the scenery. He looked just as heavenly as the sculpture above them, all tan skin and glowing teeth and short-cropped hair. Steve could easily fill the rest of their time taking pictures of him, capturing his strong hands and cushioned jaw. He thought back to the mugshot, the first picture he’d seen of him. He’d had so many ideas about Bucky. He’d had so many ideas about the world, and so many of them turned out to be wrong.

He realized the profile he’d built up in his head didn’t quite fit Bucky; not perfectly. He was dedicated, but he was spontaneous, too. He was funny and pensive, strong and soft, brave and cautious, all these things in turn. He was a whole complex being that no one side could fully describe, and Steve felt himself getting lost in the depth of him. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Bucky murmured, startling Steve a little.

“Oh. I was just thinking about my mom,” he answered quickly. “Are you close with your family?”

Bucky shook his head. “Only my sister, really. And I haven’t seen her in… hell. Too long.” Steve didn’t respond. He didn’t want to pry, but he hoped Bucky would tell him more about her if he wanted to. “Her name is Rebecca. She’s 25 now. She was only 9 when we found out she has the same condition my dad had. They gave her two years to live if we didn’t get the medication she needed. Apparently, this one medical billionaire asshole has a monopoly on it, so he can drive the prices as high as he wants. We couldn’t afford it, and insurance wouldn’t cover enough.” A quiet fury snuck into his voice, a kind of rage Steve was very familiar with. “She had an emergency one day, and the doctors put her in a coma to save her life. She wasn’t strong enough to come out on her own, and… she’s been in it ever since she was 11. Insurance has no problem keeping her asleep, but they won’t get her meds to get her healthy.” He scoffed coldly. “Thank god for Obamacare. All I know is next year, she turns 26 and Dad’s insurance won’t cover her medical bills anymore. So, this job  _ has _ to work. I know it’s going to.”

Steve let in sink in for a moment, then realized what Bucky meant by the ‘job’. He was going to steal money to save his sister. That didn’t explain why they were in Wakanda, but still… 

Steve wasn’t sure he’d have the heart to stop him. Whose side was he supposed to be on, here? The side of the government telling him to stop people from getting hurt, or the side of a man just trying to save his sister’s life?

He fucking missed when everything was black and white. 

It was almost a quarter till 1 p.m., and they still had to find the hotel. Steve stood, lifting the handle of his suitcase. “We should get going.”

 

\--

“What do you mean, there’s no reservation for Rogers?”

“I am very sorry, Sir,” the clerk repeated in excellent English. “We have Barnes in 384, but no Rogers.”

“I made the reservation three weeks ago. Could you check again, please? 386.”

“We have available rooms on the fifth and sixth floor tonight.” 

Steve sighed, cursing his bad luck, or the forces in the sky that had it in for him, or something. “Fuck,” he muttered, trying to think. There had to be another way. 

“Hey, why don’t you just stay in my room?” Bucky asked. “You’ll be even closer that way.” 

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. “Is it a double?” he asked the clerk.

“No, it is a single.”

“Do you have doubles? On the fifth or sixth floor?” Bucky suggested. 

“No, I am very sorry. All the doubles are taken tonight. 384 has a very large bed; tomorrow night you may reserve a different room with two beds.”

Steve nodded. “That’ll have to do. Thank you.”

The room was pleasant, with a very large bed in the middle. Steve sat his things on the floor and let Bucky take the dresser. As he unpacked, Steve took some extra pillows out of the closet and made his bed near the door, thankful that the only window was too small for the larger man to get through. He wouldn’t be interested in sleep for a good ten hours more, but it didn’t hurt to have things ready.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Bucky asked. 

“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor,” Steve responded.

Bucky frowned, and Steve realized he’d taken it to mean  _ I’m not letting you sleep near to the exit, _ rather than  _ I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.  _ “Fine, don’t.” He picked Steve’s pillow off the floor and tossed it at the headboard. “We’ll both sleep in the bed. That way, if I move at all in the night, there’s no way you won’t be able to tell.” He grabbed a bag of toiletries and went to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Steve closed his mouth. That hadn’t gone how he wanted it to. They’d had a real connection, on the plane and then after lunch. Now it felt like he’d messed it all up. 

_ You’re not supposed to make a connection, _ his mind reminded him.  _ You’re supposed to keep him from breaking the law. And if you hurt his feelings along the way, too bad. _

He adjusted his pillow on the bed. Bucky had thrown it so it he was still facing the side nearest to the door. It was probably better like this, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to do some decent research on African things, but the good thing about Wakanda is it’s fictional! Some of the breakfast items are real, though: mandazi is is a kind of doughnut filled with cardamom butter, the onion ring bean things are akra, and the omelette with french fries is chips mayai. I used this website for ideas: https://answersafrica.com/8-african-breakfast-ideas.html . Feel free to correct me in the comments if something is inaccurate, and I’ll update asap!


	5. Bucky POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for some good ol' bedsharing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porn ahead. Includes: dominating, orgasm delay, 'sir' kink

Bucky glowered at his reflection in the mirror, thinking about all the things that had lead him to this point. He'd been browsing through Instagram earlier, and he saw some dumb quote from a motivational page: “be the person you needed when you were younger”. He tried to shake it off, but it had been with him ever since. So many things hadn't gone the way he planned, so many dreams had ended in pain and countless unintended consequences. It wasn't that he was disappointed in himself. If he had a chance to do it all over again, he'd always save his friends. He just wished there was an option where everyone could win. An option where Rebecca could be safe and happy. 

He calmly placed his toothbrush in the holder, and as he leaned forward, he felt the cool surface of the marble countertop brush against the underside of his belly, where it lapped over his waistband. He frowned and tucked his shirt back in. His gut was getting harder to ignore, try as though he did. He was going to have to get bigger pants sometime soon. He'd planned on going on a diet eventually, but there were so many other things to focus on that it always got pushed to the back of his mind. And he'd always formulated plans better on a full stomach, anyway. There had been plenty of plan formulating. 

He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, allowing himself to really think about how it made him feel. He didn't mind, not particularly. He was still strong and handsome. He turned to the side, flexing his arms. There was a new layer of padding that didn't used to be there, but he felt sturdy. Powerful. It didn't particularly matter what other people thought of him, and if things went the way he thought they might, it wouldn't make a difference anyway.

But he'd been wrong before about the outcome of things, and he hoped to be wrong again. He'd give anything just to see Rebecca smile. 

If he was  _ really _ honest with himself, he kind of liked the way Steve looked him. Something strange had been growing between the two men, forced into proximity by events beyond their control. Bucky could tell that Steve didn't always know what to do, or how to act, and sometimes he looked like a lost puppy, despite his impressive frame. Sometimes he just wanted to cup the officer's cheek, look into his azure eyes and tell him it was all going to be okay. Such fantasies also occasionally involved Bucky gently pushing his head downward, and Steve enthusiastically giving him head, but he figured that was less realistic. Hell, he didn't even know if Steve was gay. 

But the looks he gave him sometimes…

Especially when they he was eating. At first, Bucky misunderstood the looks to be judgemental of his substantial meals and accompanying middle, but upon further inspection Steve seemed a little  _ too _ interested for it to be that. His body language changed drastically; he angled his whole body toward Bucky like he was his only reference point in all the world. His cheeks would get that pretty flush and he'd keep stealing glances when he thought Bucky wasn't looking. And there'd been the more recent times when he'd offered Bucky his own food, even encouraged him to eat more. 

But, he was certain he was imagining things. The officer's job was to keep a close eye on him; of course he stared.

There was a knock on the oak door, starling Bucky a little. 

“Hey, you okay in there?” Came Steve's voice, and Bucky was reminded of the one reason, above all others, that they could never have a relationship. 

A relationship needs trust.

 

\--

For the rest of the evening they stayed in the room, TV on the background while Bucky tapped on his laptop and Steve pointedly ignored him, doing paperwork on the floor. About an hour ago, Bucky had muttered something about Steve taking it easy in vacation, and the man had replied to his comment with a cold stare. They'd been working in charged silence ever since. Bucky was starting to go nuts. He felt boxed in, the claustrophobia of the room too much and the AC too low. He rose and walked the the window, inching it open and parting the drapes before he sat back on the bed.

“Keep it closed.”

“What?” Bucky asked.

Steve rolled his eyes. “The window. Close it.” 

Bucky sat back, crossing his legs. “If you want it shut, you close it. Too goddamn hot in here.”

Steve flushed. “You're closer. You close it, then turn the AC up.” 

“No. It's my room, and I want it open.” 

Steve drew his eyebrows together and stood. He walked over to the mini fridge and retrieved a bottle of spring water. 

“I'm gonna have to pay for that. Can't you drink out of the faucet?”

Steve frowned. “Tap water might be bad.”

Bucky sighed and snapped his laptop shut. “We're in Wakanda, Steve, not Mars. I’m sure you can drink the water.” 

Steve looked him dead in the eyes while he cracked the bottle open and took a long sip. 

Bucky felt around on the nightstand for the remote, unwilling to break eye contact first. Steve jumped and looked away when Bucky turned the channel, static filling the room. There was another beat or two of silence where Bucky proclaimed himself the victor. 

“Do they have Netflix?” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky responded, squinting at the remote. The TV was easy enough to figure out, but he wasn’t sure how to navigate the input mode settings. 

“Let me try,” Steve said, snatching the remote out of his hands. He stared at it furiously for a moment or two before shaking his head. “I don’t know.” 

“Thanks for that, Wakandan IT Guy. What did you want to watch anyway?”

“Tidying Up For Marie Kondo. I like putting it on while I work.”

Bucky shifted on the bed. He liked the show too, but he felt like disagreeing with Steve. Clearly, the cop saw him as an enemy, so why should he make anything easy?

“That’s boring. I want to watch something with a plot.” He continued to flip through the channels. In his peripheral vision he could see Steve’s jaw tensing, his middle vein pulsing on his forehead. 

Steve walked to the TV and shut it off via the button. “Stop that. You’re driving me nuts.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are the appliances in the hotel room you’re not paying for too below your holy standards?” 

“No. I just-- Just put on some music or something.” Steve was twitchy, all sorts of restless. 

Bucky knew he was being immature, but he was pissed off too. This was the first time they’d been alone, in such close confines, for so long, and everything they were dying to say was making them reckless. Bucky felt like pushing until something broke.  _ At least things can’t get any worse than being stuck in a foreign country with a self-righteous asshole. _

“Fine.” Bucky took out his phone and opened up Spotify, shuffling his punk rock playlist. He froze when  _ Know Your Rights  _ came on. He froze, then immediately scrambled to skip the song, praying Steve wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t be so lucky, however.

“Not that,” Steve snapped, exasperated. “Something without lyrics. I’m trying to read.”

Bucky checked the time and, blissfully, it was almost 10. “Whatever. You can put on anything you want. I’m going to sleep.” He stood and walked to the bathroom, grabbing his pajamas on the way. 

He was frustrated and claustrophobic, and truthfully, a little scared. He’d been bored, but now he was just tired, and he felt bad about taking it out on Steve.  _ Not that he didn’t deserve it, the prick, _ he reminded himself cheerfully, but still. It could never be possible for someone like him to do things the simple way, and he was just fooling himself by thinking so. 

He changed into the soft pants and tank top, and when he left the bathroom, the light was out and Steve was already in bed. 

He crossed the room in the dark, tripping a little over the edge of a suitcase before catching himself on the dresser. He passed by the window, pausing before getting into bed. 

“Curtains open or shut?” he whispered.

There was a pause before Steve answered. “Open.” 

The moon was sharp in the clear night, and with as little light pollution as the progressive city of Wakanda provided, the stars were brighter than Bucky had ever seen them. For the first time in his life, he saw the Milky Way with his naked eyes. It almost brought tears to his eyes.

“What are you doing, praying?” Steve whispered. 

Bucky snorted and got into the bed, realizing with relief (and perhaps a degree of disappointment) that the bed was as big as the clerk had said and he could sleep very comfortably without fighting for space. “No way.” He turned on his side, away from Steve, their backs facing each other. “You a religious man?” He assumed the answer would be affirmative, from the way Steve spoke about truth and justice.

“I don’t know. My mom raised me that way, but I guess… it’s just hard to believe in a higher power with everything wrong in the world.” 

He was surprised, not for the first time, by the other man. “Oh,” was all he could think to respond.

“Good night, Buck.”

“Night, Steve.” 

It was a good hour earlier than Bucky was used to going to bed, and he continued to watch the moon and the occasional cloud that would pass by. He felt like sleep was the last thing on his mind, all of the thoughts of the plan and the job before him racing through his mind. He could tell by Steve’s breathing that he wasn’t asleep either.

“I wish…” Steve murmured about a half hour later, so quietly Bucky nearly missed it.

“What?”

The sheets rustled a little as Steve tugged more blanket over to his side. “Nothing.”

“You wishin’ on a star?” Bucky teased.

“I thought you went to sleep.”

“Can’t.”

“Me neither.”

Steve sat up. “I have some benadryl in my suitcase.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Steve, wait.” Bucky’s hand moved out faster than he could stop it, landing on Steve’s shoulder. Steve half-turned and looked at him, expectantly. Bucky started speaking a few different times, not entirely sure what it was he was trying to say. “Fuck,” is what he decided on, before the moment became too embarrassing. He leaned forward, pressing against Steve’s back, and kissed him on his soft lips. His eyes fluttered shut. Steve’s mouth parted in surprise, and he gently licked forward. As he deepened the kiss, their faces came closer, and he felt Steve’s light stubble, breathed in his air. He pulled back for air, eyes jumping between the blond’s. “Well--” he started, but he was cut off. 

Steve threw his arms around Bucky’s neck and kissed him again, the force of his embrace sending Bucky falling against the pillows. He recovered himself and put his hands on Steve’s tiny waist, situating him better on top of him. Steve straddled his thick waist, his pretty ass perched right on Bucky’s middle. He hadn’t seen what the officer was wearing since he came out of the bathroom, but he was delighted to see that he was clad in only boxers.

Steve pulled away from the kiss and sat up, looking down at him. Bucky was afraid he might try to argue against what happened, but his hands were still on him, thumbs hooking under the straps of his shirt. “Off,” he muttered, tugging lightly. 

Bucky hesitated for a moment, and Steve’s face turned plaintive. “Please?” he asked in a voice so small. Bucky was almost worried about doing it, about being so bare and vulnerable beneath Steve, but when he looked in his eyes, he knew that he needn’t have been. Every single emotion and thought that Steve was having were plastered plainly on his face, and all of them seemed to be screaming  _ I want you. _ Bucky thought wryly for a moment that if he wondered what the other man was thinking, he should have gotten him into bed weeks okay.

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to shift down a little, honey,” Bucky mentioned, hard as it was to sit up with Steve sitting right on him. The pet name slipped out of his mouth too quickly, and he cursed himself immediately for ruining this perfect moment. It felt fragile, like the type of thing that would disappear if too much attention was called to it.

Steve, however, just beamed, immediately scooching back to sit on the tops of Bucky’s thighs. A blush was high on his cheeks, and Bucky could see that he was already hard in his boxers. At once, he knew he had his number, and he was surprised he didn’t guess earlier. On the job, the two of them were always fighting for authority, butting heads over who made the call. But in bed, Steve relinquished complete control to him. 

“Is that what you want, honey?” he couldn’t help but ask. “Want someone to take care of you, tell you what to do?”

Steve honest to god  _ mewled.  _ And god, if that wasn’t the weirdest thing, but it turned Bucky right the hell on. “Alright, baby,” he soothed, sitting up a little and peeling his tank top off himself, tossing it on the ground. He placed one arm on Steve’s shoulder, anchoring him with the touch. “If that’s what you need, sweetheart. ‘M gonna make you feel so good.”

Steve’s eyes were wide and full of expression, making him look frightened and young. It had been a while since either of them were so vulnerable with another person. 

Bucky palmed at Steve’s crotch, and he bucked his hips up into the touch, eyes fluttering shut. “Damn, honey, you’ve already soaked your boxers. Why don’t you take them off?” Bucky suggested. 

Steve grunted in response, sitting up on his knees and shoving his underwear lower down on his hips, hard cock bouncing free. It wasn’t to that that Bucky paid attention, though- he trailed his hand down Steve’s perfect abs, past his balls and to his tight hole. He circled it with his finger, not quite pressing in, but just feeling the velvet soft flesh. 

Steve leaned forward against Bucky, resting his forehead on the man’s shoulder in almost an embrace. “I want you to fuck me,” he whispered right in Bucky’s ear.

Bucky pulled back in surprise and looked him in his blue eyes. “You sure?”

“Yes. Please,” Steve begged. “I want you inside me. Please.” He was equal parts desperation and confidence, and god, if it wasn’t working on Bucky-- he’d been with few lovers who managed to pull off both at once. 

Bucky kissed him again, softly, on the cheek, like he was able to be broken from the single touch. “Okay. You want to ride me, baby?”

Steve nodded in response, not looking in Bucky’s eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered, tilting Steve’s face until their eyes met. “Use your words, okay, honey? If you don’t want something, you just let me know.”

“I want… I want to be beneath you.” Steve’s voice had gotten so quiet, like he was afraid to hear himself admit what he wanted. One of the first times they’d met, Bucky had pegged him as being into some weird fucking sex-- someone as repressed as him always had a ton of crazy hidden below the surface. What surprised Bucky was how similar their dirty little interests were. 

“Under me, darlin’? Doggystyle?” Bucky was poignantly aware neither of them had used each other’s names since they kissed. Was Steve picturing him as someone else, he wondered? He was certain that Steve wasn’t wishing that he was with a woman instead, from the way he wanted to be fucked from behind, but he wondered if he was hoping he was someone thinner, or at least less felonious. He didn’t want that, to make love to him while he closed his eyes and imagined it was someone else’s dick pounding him, but he just had to trust Steve to be transparent with his desires. 

Not like he had been heretofore. 

“Yes. Please,” Steve added, his blush positively scarlet. 

“Okay,” Bucky repeated, getting with the program. Steve sat to the side and got off of him while he sat up on his knees to take his pants off. Steve immediately got on all fours, bracing his arms on the pillow and presenting ass to Bucky so beautifully. 

Bucky rose from the bed for a moment, fetching a condom and some lube from his cosmetics bag. Steve was still waiting in perfect position once he situated himself back on the bed. “Good boy, that’s so nice like that,” Bucky muttered, rolling the condom on and squeezing a generous amount of lube on his fingers. He heard Steve shudder in a deep breath. “Ready?” he asked, and Steve nodded again. “Words, baby,” he reminded him. 

“Yes, Sir,” Steve responded quickly, and Bucky rewarded him by pressing his first finger into Steve’s hole. He cried out, arching his back. Bucky worked it around in slow circles before he added the second. “Oh, god,  _ fuck, _ ” Steve muttered, voice muffled by the pillow. 

“You feel so tight,” Bucky added, and his own voice surprised him, how deep and fucked out it sounded. 

Steve let out a rueful chuckle. “Been a while.”

“That’s okay.” Bucky scissored his fingers, feeling Steve’s soft walls adjust around him. “Me too.” His cock was ready, and Steve was, too, quivering beneath him and aching for it. Bucky lined up and pressed the tip against Steve’s hole, taking a moment to admire his strong back, his trapezius flexing beneath golden skin. He was almost glad that at this angle, Steve wouldn’t be the recent weight he’d stacked onto his middle, but that meant that he’d feel it as Bucky leant over him. 

_ Fuck it. _ If Steve didn’t want Bucky’s gut resting on his back, then he shouldn’t have asked for doggy style. Bucky rested his hands on Steve’s adonis belt, feeling the hard muscle there and the contrast with his own muffin top. He pushed in, Steve’s hole taking him halfway up his shaft before he paused. “You good?”

“ _ God, _ yes, you feel so big,  _ shit, _ ” Steve cried out, and wiggled his butt in an attempt to take Bucky in further. “Bottom out, please.”

Bucky couldn’t refuse him when he used that voice. Instead of thrusting forward, he pulled Steve back into him, easily manhandling him backward until his balls were flesh against Steve’s ass. “Fuck, honey, you’re perfect.” He began to set the pace, obscene sounds filling the hotel room. About a quarter of the sounds were made by the overhang of his belly, slapping against Steve’s back with each thrust.

Steve seemed deterred not an iota, though, taking dick like a champ. He whimpered for it, driving Bucky on, making small sounds without quite forming words. Bucky continuously reassured him, calling him ‘baby’ and ‘doll’ and ‘sweetheart’ and everything but his name. He was chanting it in his mind, though, an endless chorus of  _ Steve, Steve, Steve, I’ve wanted this since I first saw you, Steve, knew you’d be so good for me, wanted to push your pretty head down and make you blow me, Steve, oh god, Steve, Steve, Steve. _

“S-sir,” Steve gasped out, making Bucky growl darkly in appreciation. What would his superiors say if they could see him like this, being fucked by his parolee? “I’m gonna come…”

“Not yet,” Bucky commanded, high off the feeling of power that Steve gave him. This is what they’d lacked all along. This was the dynamic they were always searching for, the position they needed. Everything felt right in this moment. Bucky above Steve, buried in him and branding every unsaid word on his perfect ass. Maybe it would never last, outside this moment. Maybe they would come and roll over and refuse to look each other in the eyes. Maybe in the morning Bucky would eat his feelings and find some way to escape out the back to find the rest of his team and get down to fucking business, but right now he was having the best sex of his adult life and it would last as long as they both did. “Not yet, doll, hold on for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir,” Steve sobbed, voice breaking. He was shaking with the effort, beads of sweat rolling down his back and pillow dampened with drool or tears. 

Bucky pulled out and removed the condom, reaching between his legs and stroking him, feeling the vein, the gentle curve. “Okay, now, sweetheart. Come for me.” 

Steve finished with a shout, seed spraying into Bucky’s hand. After the throes of his orgasm left, he collapsed and rolled over onto his back, knees up. His eyes were instantly on Bucky’s hard dick, head purple and throbbing, and without asking, he put his hands on Bucky’s ass and swallowed him down, swirling his tongue around his shaft and tonguing at the slit.

Bucky threw his head back and groaned, surprised and fucking delighted. Steve was no pillow princess, that was for sure, and he knew his way around a dick better than anyone Bucky might have encountered- well, ever. Options had been rather limited. 

“St-ste, sweetie, I’m gonna, fuck,  _ oh,  _ SteeEeve!” Bucky warned, catching himself but not in enough time. Steve was pulling his brains straight through his cock, and he was lucky to form a single word at all. He could have punched himself for saying his name, though. “Baby. Gonna.” Steve made no attempt to pull back, instead hollowing out his cheeks more as he sucked Bucky’s prick like his life depended on it, and Bucky came down his throat. He pulled back a moment later, lips swollen and so pink he could have been wearing lipstick. “That was. Holy shit. That was really good.” 

Steve collapsed backward onto the pillows, tugging at Bucky vaguely with floppy hands. Bucky came down atop him to rest in a sweaty mess, and then realized he was probably squishing the poor man. He made to move, but Steve had regained some of his strength, vice-like arms holding him in place. “We should clean up,” Bucky muttered, already feeling sleep creeping up on his eyelids.

Steve grunted, neither in affirmation or denial, and in moments they were asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Know Your Rights” is a song by the Clash. Some of the lyrics are “You have the right not to be killed / Murder is a crime / Unless it was done by a / Policeman or aristocrat.” We stan a punk legend. 
> 
> Also, I'll get to the actual feeding kink eventually, I promise! I gotta get this pesky plot outta the way first. (Also me: writes 3.7K of porn to stall)


	6. Steve POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve makes a discovery that forces him to choose a side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes for a “I’m punishing myself” run in the beginning. It’s not related to body image issues, he just has an unhealthy way of dealing with emotions and also gets a little dehydrated. Drink your water. Take your meds. Your tea is steeped enough and it’s getting cold. Take care of yo self

Steve woke up in the early Wakandan morning, pinned on the bed under the weight of Bucky. He grunted as Steve half-shoved him off himself, scrambling out of the mess of sheets tangled around his legs to release himself from the bed.

_ Compromised.  _

Everything was compromised. The job, Bucky, but also, himself. He’d been alone for so long, relying only on his own judgement, exiling everyone out of his life until he was left with only the people he could trust. And so what if that meant he was by himself? Loneliness was a fair price to pay for honesty. Steve had rules, and it always seemed that those who got close to him could never follow them. Well, he’d always been excellent at following his own rules. And others, which is what made him a great soldier. He could detach from himself, until he was just on autopilot, trusting the command of those above him. 

_ Feelings make you vulnerable. _

Barnes could have, quite literally, killed him in the night. If that had been his plan, the man could have seduced him and then cut his throat. Or escaped. Steve was half-shocked to see that he hadn’t moved at all, and it would have been more prevalent in his mind if he wasn’t so appalled with himself. He’d fucked up everything. What he  _ ought  _ to do- what he really should do, is call Fury, tell him he was compromised, ask him to send Sam, and take a long sabbatical. Maybe he could pick up mountain biking. In Northern Europe. 

But all he wanted to do was get back in bed. Or maybe make coffee first, and serve a warm cup to Bucky. Ask him where his head was at, where he wanted to go from here. And maybe he wanted to run away with him a little bit. There seemed to be a young, foolish part of his mind that told him to quit his job and abandon every shred of his civilized life to move away to Iceland and raise sheep, and maybe take Bucky with him. 

He needed to stop. He needed to think logically, and come up with a plan that didn’t involve him changing his name and moving permanently to a foreign country. He needed to run.

He didn’t bother leaving a note. What the fuck would he even write? “ _ Good morning, I had a great time last night, I’m going on a jog to clear my head of the fact that I could get fired or imprisoned for what I did, please don’t rob anyone while I’m gone” _ ? 

He quickly put on basketball shorts and a tank top, grabbing his phone and his wallet and letting google maps track his path for him. He turned up the music in his air pods, not wanting to be left with the thoughts inside his head. Every time his feet hit the road, the words  _ you failed _ echoed in his head.

 

He only began to loop back around once he was so thirsty he could barely swallow. Memories from last night began running through his head. The two of them, bickering over expensive hotel water. The two of them, stubbornly sleeping back-to-back in the same bed. The two of them, kissing and making love. Bucky, waking up this morning all alone.

He checked his phone. He’d been gone for two hours already. He couldn’t even imagine how angry Fury would be if he knew that Steve had left Bucky alone for this long. Was that Bucky’s plan all along? Get his guard down so he could escape?

Steve half-hoped he’d be gone when he got back. It might be easier that way. He had a plan for that: call the local police, alert Fury, have a full CIA swat team out for his ass in less than an hour. Somehow, that seemed easier to handle than if he returned to find Bucky still there. 

Because Steve had given him a perfect window of opportunity to escape. And if Bucky was still back in the little hotel room, that would mean he hadn’t even tried to leave. Steve wasn’t ready to face what that would mean.

He entered the hotel and climbed the steps to their hotel room. As he neared the door, he heard a raised voice and he paused to listen.

“What do you mean, he can’t?! Well, put him on. No, add him to the call.” There was a short pause. “Thor? What’s going on? … Fuck, man, I’m really sorry to hear that. … Can it wait? Until next week? It’ll all be over by Thursday. … Okay. If you have to. Send a postcard.” 

Steve waited a few more seconds, but didn’t hear anything else, so he entered the room. Bucky sat on the edge of the bed in only his sleep pants, soft belly pooching over the waistband that his dark happy trail disappeared into. Steve would be lying if he said that sight didn’t do all sorts of things to him. 

“Something wrong?”

Bucky scrubbed a hand through his hair, making the short strands stick up in all sorts of directions. “Yeah. My fucking strong man’s dad died and he has to go back to Norway for a two-week funeral, or something.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Strong man?”

Bucky sighed, falling back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, for my job. Not like it fucking matters anymore. The whole plan falls apart unless everyone’s there.”

Steve sat next to him on the bed, gingerly. He was trying to wrap his head around what was happening. He’d pretended he didn’t know that Bucky had been planning something criminal this whole time, and he thought Bucky had either bought it or had been pretending too. His whole world had been flipped on its head, and he was unused to the honesty. “Why can’t you just do it?”

“Because. I have to be orchestrating the whole thing. Little hard for me to be the eyes if I’m the muscle, too.”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

“Are you listening? I can’t  _ do  _ it at all. The plan’s done.” He moved his head to look up at Steve. “You gonna arrest me for planning a job?”

“Well, I certainly could. I could arrest you for Attempted Burglary.” 

Bucky shook his head and turned away. “You don’t understand anything.”

“Yes, I do. I understand that you care about your sister and you want to help her. You’re..” Even now, Steve couldn’t be mad at Bucky. He could help but feel all his alliances compromise, everything within him being pulled to the man on the bed. “You’re a better man that I gave you credit for. But still, I can’t let you steal from others to pay for her medication. There’s organizations to help people like you. I’ll bring you back to America, I’ll help you get insurance to cover it. Or we can take out a loan. There’s another way, Bucky. We can do this without breaking the law.”

Bucky sat up again, looking shocked and somewhat bemused. “Steve, I don’t want to steal money to pay for Becca’s medicine. I want to make Thanos go bankrupt to distribute the medicine back to the open market.”

 

\--

Steve sat in the back of the black van, getting jostled between a man with curly salt-and-pepper hair and young man with brown hair that’s been dyed silver. He was forced to sit in the far back, and Bucky was driving and chatting with the redhead. He looked out the window to see the fancy limo with the royal flag flying from the hood was still following them. 

He was repeating the plan over in his head, mouthing along with the words to memorize it.  _ T’Challa will go to the front of the estate for his appointment. Our inside man will let us in the back. I will knock out the guards while the brunette girl distracts the others. The silver-haired kid-- Pietro--  _ he corrected himself, trying to keep everyone’s names straight. He’d been introduced to each member this morning, including the  _ king of Wakanda, _ the impact of which had not been lost on him. He’d never really heard the name Donald Thanos before, but apparently he was a medicine mogul who made his fortune from developing the drug that Becca used. Everyone hated him, from King T’Challa to his own staff members, notably a blond man with a British accent who was supposed to let them in. No one knew his name, to protect his safety, but the rest had been calling him Vision. 

_ Pietro will crack the safe while the girl with short brown hair will hack into security. Bucky and I will take the bags of money up to the roof, where the helicopter will pick us up. The man with the goatee will cause the power outage, and the deaf man will help us put the money in the helicopter. Some of us will leave in the helicopter, and the rest of us will leave with T’Challa and his entourage after he’s done meeting with Thanos’ personal assistant.  _

The team had been assured that Thanos himself was vacationing in the States, as he liked to this time of year. Bucky had gone over plan with everyone twice before they began the drive to his estate. It was a long ride from their departure at one of the hotel’s party suites, where Bucky had demonstrated everyone’s positions with monopoly pieces- a fitting touch of irony that Steve couldn’t help but appreciate. It’d been kind of hot to watch Bucky work, and Steve had to admit that he was good at it. He was born to lead, thinking in organized ways that others could only hope to achieve, telling everyone their place and what they could expect to see. The briefing had been so similar to what Steve had experienced in both the military and law enforcement that it had almost calmed him. Almost. He would’ve been more calm if he was about to patrol the streets of DC instead of stealing from the richest man in the hospital industry, but hey, you can’t have it all. 

In the end, it’d been the memory of his mother that made him agree to Bucky’s plans. Bucky had put his hand on his shoulders, looked into his eyes, and asked him  _ Do you think Sarah would have died if health care was free, Steve? _

And the thought hadn’t really occurred to him before, when he was younger. He never thought about how their poverty prevented them from affording insurance, or how no one contracted tuberculosis in the year 2007, or how any hospital on the entire East coast could have saved her in seconds if he’d had the cash to cover it. He  _ specifically  _ hadn’t thought about that last bit. And it was a gamble, for Bucky to bring up his mother. It could’ve gone badly. He could’ve jumped up, screamed  _ how dare you imply that I didn’t do every goddamn thing I could do save my mother, _ and had Bucky arrested right then, but he didn’t. Instead he’d nodded, turned off his phone, and asked what he needed to do. 

The only part that he’d really had a problem with was when Bucky told him that Thor-- the muscle, the position that Steve was filling-- was supposed to help him carry the money to the roof. Knocking out guards so that Bucky could sneak through Thanos’ uninhabited estate and commit a crime that was only hurting a billionaire, and in fact aiding thousands of people, was the easy part. But he wasn’t sure he could assuage his scruples enough to actually help steal the money himself. There was still a part-- a very large part-- of him that said this was all a mistake, that feelings were his weakness, that he was abandoning his moral compass to aid a bunch of criminals.

But they didn’t act like criminals, with maybe the exception of the redhead (who just plain smelled like trouble to Steve- _ Russian _ trouble in particular). The girl with the long brunette hair didn’t look older than 20, and the guy on his left looked like he could have a family. The woman who sat in front of him and kept fiddling with some lines of code on her computer actually did have a family; she’d proudly shown him a picture of her daughter when they met. They mostly just seemed like a group of Bucky’s friends, united by the idea that they could make the world better, and the ones in power were failing to do so.

Half of Steve was shouting that the systematic institutions were in place to protect the people. The other half was shouting that they never had, and all systematic institutions were doomed to fail. 

There was one thing he knew for sure: Thanos, a man who’d created a means by which to help people, but was using it to help only himself, was everything he hated in humanity. 

That’s what kept him going, what kept him in the back seat of the van on way to ruin him. Thanos was a bully. And there was nothing Steve hated more than a bully.

 

The long stretches of mountains in the distance and nearby hills covered in green forests gave way to a neat driveway lined with streetlamps, and through the front window, Steve could see a gaudy mansion lurking over the circular driveway. Bucky slowed and parked on the side, where the redhead and the man with curly hair exited the van. Steve thought back to Bucky’s monopoly board.

_ Bruce will act as T’Challa’s bodyguard. T’Challa has a noon business appointment to speak with Thanos’ PA about financing some research. Nat will be hidden in a duffel bag that Bruce will carry. While everyone’s distracted, the rest of us will go around the back. _

As the three began to walk toward the entrance of the estate, Bucky stopped the redhead for a moment. Steve overheard Bucky make her promise to stay safe, and gave her a hug before helping her zip herself into the duffel bag. He came back to the van after Bruce picked her up, and instead of sitting back in the driver’s seat, sat next to Steve in Bruce’s vacant spot.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve replied automatically. Bucky raised an eyebrow, challenging him. 

“It’s not too late to leave. You haven’t done anything yet.”

Steve looked at his hands. “Yes, I have. Besides, if I leave, your whole plan falls apart.” 

Bucky shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. We’ll figure something out. I want you here because you  _ want  _ to do this, not because you feel guilted into helping. Okay?”

Steve looked around, at the odd group of friends around him. From the bucket seat opposite Janet typing furiously on her laptop, Wanda gave him a small smile. Tony was fidgeting with some time of C-4 that was making Steve nervous, and Pietro was putting batteries into some device with a combination lock on it. He thought of his mom, how much she would love all of them if she were here. He thought of Bucky, of their time the night before last, and what a possible end to all this could look like. 

He made up his mind, leaning forward and kissing Bucky lightly on the lips. “Yes. I lost faith in the police department a long time ago. It just took until now for me to realize that I’ve lost faith in myself, too. I want to help people somehow, and I know this is going to.”

Bucky seemed surprised at this kiss, and Steve knew that they still hadn’t talked things over yet, but he also seemed pleased at Steve’s answer. “Okay.” He was about to say more, but then his phone chimed and he checked it. “Good news and bad news. Vision’s at the back door now.”

“What’s the bad news?” Tony asked, looking up from his incendiary contraption. 

“Thanos isn’t in America. He flew back this morning. T’Challa’s going to have to meet with him, instead of the PA.”

Janet’s face went white. “Can he do that?”

Bucky nodded. “Thanos is a greedy asshole. It was a better bet with the PA because he’d be more likely to just accept the money, but it just means we’ll have to be more careful. Let’s move.”

Bucky went back to the driver’s seat and drove them around to the back, where a man in a suit was holding a door open. Bucky parked, and then looked over at Janet. “Are we good to go?”

Janet typed a few more times, a notification sounded, and then she replied. “Yep. Tell Peter and Clint they can land on the roof.” They left the van and entered the building, and Steve heard the distant hum of a chopper approaching. 

Wanda gave Vision a kiss, and thanked him as they parted. Bucky seemed surprised, but not bothered. 

“You didn’t know that they were together?” Steve asked Bucky with a frown. 

Bucky shrugged. “We aren’t required to tell each other everything. I trust her to handle it.”

“But that could get messy… you know, if there’s feelings in a job.”

Bucky paused, and motioned for Tony, Wanda, Pietro, and Janet to go on. He pulled Steve into a side corridor to talk. “Steve, I know all these people, except for Tony and Peter. I worked with them on my last job, and it went wrong. That’s how I ended up in jail and they all went free. But I’m not just working with them again because I  _ trust _ them. We’re a family, kind of. I’d die for anyone here. I could do this job with a bunch of strangers on the internet- I could just give them their cut and then we’d be safe. But I truly believe that our connections to each other make us stronger. If anything, Vision’s feelings for Wanda makes this plan more likely to succeed, not fail. Does that make sense?”

Steve didn’t immediately answer, and Bucky rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “Think about it. You ready?”

Steve nodded, and they left the hallway to catch up with the rest. As they took a quick turn, Steve spotted two men in dark suits wearing cords around their ears walk toward them. He quickly put a hand on Bucky’s soft middle, keeping him in the hallway behind him. “Stay back,” he whispered. “I’ve got this.” 

Bucky gave him a nod, and Steve couldn’t quite gauge his expression, although his closest guess was pride. “Go get ‘em.”

Steve walked forward, and the two guards spotted him. “Hey, you! Don’t move. Let me see some ID,” the one on the left commanded. 

“Of course,” Steve answered smoothly, pulling out his wallet. As they approached him, he fisted his hand over his wallet and punched the one on the right, knocking him out. Before the guard on the left could grab his gun, he elbowed his hand and kicked the gun to the floor, moving it out of the security guard’s reach. As he bent over to grab it, Steve caught him in a headlock and lowered him to the floor. The man spluttered, his face turning red as he grabbed at Steve’s arms. Steve didn’t release him until he was completely still, and he checked their pulses and called out to Bucky. “You can come out now.”

Bucky came up behind him, glancing at the unconscious guards and checking his phone. “Okay, Vision’s giving me directions to the safe room. Left here,” he pointed to double doors that lead to stairs going up and down. “Down, and then left at the bottom, and then two doors to the right.” They made their way through Thanos’ luxurious estate, keeping an eye out for more guards on the way. Steve opened the second door, and inside was the entrance to a large vault, and Tony, Wanda, and Janet were watching Pietro attach his combination device to the vault door.

“How much longer?” Bucky asked Pietro, casting a wary glance to the camera in the corner.

“Twelve minutes, maybe less,” he answered, reading something on his phone screen.

“Okay. How are we on loops?” 

“Good. I’m circling through only the areas where we are, so we don’t draw too much attention. Currently I have the roof, this room, and the corridor where Steve knocked out those guards,” Janet responded, routing some lines of text. 

“You’re amazing. I can see why Scott married you,” Bucky gushed, and Janet gave him a wink.

“Stevie, knocking out the guards? I’m impressed!” Tony exclaimed, sliding his eyes over him. “Take my card, give me a call when you get tired of Thiccy over there.” He handed Steve a bio card that said, inexplicably,  _ genius, billionaire, playboy. _

“Exactly how many high-profile people does it take to steal some money?!” Steve asked Bucky, exasperated. 

Bucky shrugged with a chuckle and opened his mouth to speak, but Tony interrupted. “I own 73.4% of the market on explosives. And unlike this asshole, I’m willing to do business and share my boom-boom sticks with anybody. Any more questions?”

Steve grimaced. “No, I am definitely good. Are we sure this is gonna take 12 minutes, Pietro?” 

They turned to look at him, and he was squinting at the device as it gave a  _ clunk _ and the numbers settled on a code. “Actually, I think we’re good to go now. Would you like to do the honours?”

Bucky stepped forward, and put his hands on the crank. “Steve, care to give me a hand?” 

Steve grasped the other two cranks, and the pins clinked as the round door inched away from the wall and swung on its hinges. 

Inside the vault were floor-to-ceiling shelves, and each shelf was filled with bags full of money. One on the floor contained a freshly-hatched Natasha, who had already lined up ten duffel bags. 

“Hi guys, glad you could make it. Little problem. Turns out Thanos isn’t the kind of asshole to keep his bank hoard in the form of cash.”

Everyone cast their eyes to the full duffle bags on the floor. “So… what exactly is in the bags?”

Nat unzipped one of them, revealing the shiny contents. “Diamonds.”

“Fuck,” Bucky exclaimed, the rest of the group groaning in agreement. 

“I don’t understand,” Steve said, puzzled. “What’s wrong with diamonds?”

“They’re heavy,” Nat explained. “It’ll take longer to carry up to the roof, and we only have until about 1 until T’Challa leaves. It’s going well, as you can see by my presence here, Thanos already took the money, so possibly shorter than that.”

“And the chopper,” Janet added, and Bucky made a tense expression. “It can only carry so much, and for all of us to escape quickly enough for Thanos to not notice us, that means we can carry less diamonds.”

Bucky looked to Steve. “Your call, pal. How much do you want to carry to the roof?”

Steve recalled the information about the house Bucky shared. That meant they had to go up five flights of stairs. “Will the plan still work if we only take half his money?”

Bucky thought for a moment. “I don’t know. There’s 3.1 billion dollars worth of diamonds here, so I feel like 1.5 billion is still enough for him to fall back on. It’s up to you and how much you want to carry.” 

There were just under 50 bags of diamonds in total, each bag weighing about 200 lbs. The helicopter would be capable carrying all 11 team members, excluding Vision (who would stay at the estate), and T’Challa and Bruce (who would be leaving in the limo and van), and the cash should only way 60 lbs. Either they could only take half the money, or half of them would have to find another way to exit the estate. “We take all the money. If he has enough to not go bankrupt, then all of this has been for nothing.” 

Bucky nodded. “Okay. Nat, Wanda, keep packing. Pietro, Tony, Steve and I will bring the bags to the roof. Janet, make sure the stairwell is clear. Up top, Peter and Clint will help us load the chopper. Bruce will text me when the meeting’s over. I assume we’ve got about 25 minutes.”

Pietro and Tony went first, and Bucky and Steve each grabbed one bag, and carried a third between them. 

Halfway up the third stairwell, Steve’s worry was so tangible in the air that Bucky spoke. “It’s okay, Steve. You made a good call.”

“How do we decide who stays behind?”

Bucky didn’t respond for a moment.

“Buck?”

“It’ll work out.”

“You’re planning on staying, aren’t you?”

“C’mon, Steve. I weigh more than even one bag of diamonds. Peter has to be on the chopper, to drive. You should, too.”

“No way, I’m not going. Not without you.”

“You have your job to think about. I’m going back to jail no matter what happens, no question about that. But I’m not pulling you down with me.” As they ascended the fourth staircase, Tony and Pietro came back down from the roof. “Whoa, what’s goin’ on here? We talking about who goes on the chopper? Cause one of those seats is reserved for me.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve snapped.

“Bucky-” Tony started, but Bucky waved him off. “I got this. You and Pietro get the other bags. Steve, he has to. High-profile, remember? It’s better for the rest of us if the press stay out of this. I’m saving as many of your asses as I can.”

“But not your own,” Steve responded angrily. All this time, he’d been so focused on knowing Bucky’s whereabouts all the time, and it scared him more than he cared to admit to leave him behind. And not because of the law, or some false sense of guilt or responsibility. Steve was starting to think that he really cared for Bucky deeper than he thought.

They reached the roof, where a smiling Clint rushed over to the door to help them with the bags. The driver of the chopper was a kid who looked like he was missing a class in freshman high school, but Steve was hardly even fazed. 

He kept turning the outcome over in his head, wondering if it was a mistake to get involved in all this, after all. Just as he and Bucky wrangled the last three bags onto the roof, Bucky got a text from Bruce. “They’re leaving, now. You have to go.” 

Peter and Clint strapped in, Tony joining them in the helicopter.

“No! You go. Take my seat. I’m going back into the vault, with the others.”

Bucky opened his mouth to speak, but just then the power of the building went off. It was still bright enough to see in the midday sun, but the building must have gone into lockdown as a grate began to descend on the doorway Bucky stood in. Steve tried to pull him from the door, but his feet were planted tight. 

“Steve, you have to let go. This exit is going to seal shut.” Steve still tugged on his arm, fear plastered on his face. He was distantly aware of himself making an embarrassing whimpering. “Steve, go. Quickly. If you don’t let go and leave now, the door is going to pin my arm shut.”

Steve released Bucky’s arm, and it felt limply to his side. It was just in time, as the door that had been slowing the descent of the grate broke under the pressure, and the gate slammed to the ground with a force strong enough to dismember. Steve clutched two bars of the gate, and Bucky comfortingly put a hand over his. “We’ll see each other again, I promise.”

“Steve!” Clint yelled behind them, over the sound of the chopper starting up. “We have to go before the power comes back on!”

“Buck...” Steve started, but his voice died in his throat before he continued, strangled by the tears he felt creeping to his eyes. He’d been holding on for so long. He felt like he wasn’t alone, for the first time in years. He wasn’t ready to let go.

“I know.” Bucky gave him a small smile, then stepped back to shut the door that wasn’t broken. 

Steve turned and got into the chopper, pulling the door shut behind him, and counted 48 bags of diamonds just to make sure. He looked out of the window and watch the estate disappear behind them as they flew North over the Wakandan mountains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update was a little late! Also sorry to separate the boys haha I promise they’ll be together soon!  
> Steve said fuck blue lives!


	7. Bucky POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and the others have to find a way to get out of the estate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: this has a happy ending.

Pietro stood at the bottom of the fifth staircase, illuminating the way with the flashlight on his phone. 

“Thanks, man,” Bucky said, feeling defeated about his lack of information. It wasn’t Vision’s fault-- as just a housekeeper, there wouldn’t have been any way for him to know. However, it was up to Bucky to foresee possible difficulties and make adjustments. He was responsible for getting the remaining members out safely. “I’m sorry it had to happen like this.”

Pietro put a hand on his shoulder. “I was there with you last time, I’ll be with you again, no matter what happens. I owe you everything, Bucky. I know you did everything you could.”

Bucky embraced him. “That means a lot.” 

Pietro clapped his back. “We should probably go before the lights--”

“Right.” They quickly made their way down the rest of the stairs. There was some smoke in the basement left over from Tony’s detonation, and a few pulsing red lights alerting the power outage. Nat, Wanda, and Janet came from the vault room. 

“How are we looking?” Bucky asked Janet.

“We’re good here, but I’ve lost control of the cameras in the basement and the roof. I’ll have to be more careful with our coverage on the way out, because now they’re looking for loops and they can block my access quicker than I can make a new route.”

“Okay.” Bruce and T’Challa had already left, so they should be safe until Thanos began questioning things. Also, T’Challa had diplomatic immunity from being questioned if he hadn’t committed an actual crime, and Bucky had been very careful to make sure that he couldn’t be incriminated. “Now we just have to get out.”

“I have a plan,” Janet began, shutting her laptop. “He has an art gallery on the second floor. I could pretend to steal a painting.”

“Hang on,” Wanda interrupted. “We’re getting caught to go free?”

“That’s a good, plan, actually,” Nat said, agreeing with Janet. “It would distract him from the other crime if there was something smaller going on. We should wear masks, and then he’ll call the cops. We can return the art and then get, what, detained for enough time to escape? How hard can it be?” The rest of the group looked uncertain. “C’mon, we’ve gotten out of worse before! ... Well, all of us except for Janet.” 

Janet chuckled. “I’ve gotten out of sticky situations too. And you’re going to love me for getting us out of this one-- I’m currently wearing nylons.”

Bucky glanced down at her ankles, and saw hose in the gap between the cuff of her pantsuit and her fashionable shoes. “Okay, well, that’s two heads. There’s four of us here. Are any other of you lovely ladies wearing pantyhose?”

“Ugh, god, don’t call it that. Y’all should be glad I’m obsessed with the 90s,” Wanda said, snapping the waistband of her black hose under her ripped jeans. “Alright, everybody, hose off.” Nat and Bucky waited while Janet and Wanda removed their hose, and then they ripped them  for makeshift masks. 

“Okay,” Nat announced. “Let’s steal some art.”

 

\--

The alarm sounded as soon as Janet touched the frame of the very ugly abstract modern art. It was a tiny thing, no larger than a piece of copy paper, situated in a frame about twice its size. The painting was entirely red on the bottom half, and the top was dotted with the worst imaginable green, and yellow lines bisected each dot. 

“I don’t get it,” Bucky complained as they waited for guards to arrive. “I could drive this in five seconds. It can’t be worth more than $15.”

“It’s not about how it looks. It’s about how it makes you  _ feel _ ,” Natasha intoned smugly as two security guards broke down the door. The one on the left was the one Steve had punched earlier, sporting a nasty bruise on his cheek, and the one on the right was a positively fierce woman with blue hair. 

“Oh fuck, I think we forgot about the guards,” Wanda muttered with an impressively convincing tone. 

“Hands on your heads, fuckers! Don’t move! The police are on their way,” The blue haired woman shouted, and the man translated in Xhosa. The guards only had two handcuffs between them, and the man cuffed Bucky and Nat, while the woman cuffed Janet and Wanda. The woman tried to interrogate them, but everyone refused to respond until their lawyer was present. The guards didn’t attempt to remove their pantyhose. 

The blue-haired woman’s walkie-talkie blipped, and she answered it. “Go for door.”

“Police are about to enter the second floor. Over.”

“10-4. Over.” 

The handle turned, and Bucky had to physically restrain himself from jumping up in joy or showing any type of reaction on his face other than ‘shame’ at being caught.

“Alright, what seems to be the issue here?” the cop asked.

“We caught these four trying to steal this painting from Mr. Thanos’ personal art collection.”

“Understood. I’ll take them into custody in the back of my car below, and then Mr. Thanos should come to the station to give his statement, assuming he will be pressing charges.” 

“Of  _ course _ he’ll be pressing charges. These four should be imprisoned in solitary.” 

The officer nodded, holding onto the four of them by the handcuff links. “Don’t even  _ think  _ about escaping.” 

Bucky groaned as realistically as possible, and Nat struggled weakly. They were escorted off the property and into the back of an unmarked police car. As soon as they were safely inside, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. 

“Your ass looks cute in those fatigues,” Bucky exclaimed, leaning his face toward the opening in the partition. 

Steve blushed, giving him a kiss through the window. “I was really hoping I wouldn’t need them when I packed them, but now I’m glad I did.”

“What happened?!” Wanda demanded.

“As soon the chopper landed, I grabbed a phone. I didn’t bring mine on the heist because I knew Fury could track me. I called T’Challa-- which took a painfully long time to convince the mainly Xhosa-speaking phone tree that I knew the King and had to speak to him immediately-- and begged him to get me a patrol car and to redirect any outgoing calls from the estate to Bruce’s phone.”

“But how did you know we wouldn’t just escape without detection, and you were raising suspicion by arriving?” Bucky questioned.

As Steve started to drive away from Thanos’ estate, he glanced back at Bucky in the rear-view mirror and raised an eyebrow. “You, escape without detection? Doubtful.”

Bucky couldn’t deny that. 

The flight back to DC was in two days. Steve dropped everyone off at their respective hotels and returned the car to the Wakanda police force. Bruce gave Bucky updates while him and T’Challa ran interference, and Steve and Bucky spent the last hours of their time in Wakanda nervously waiting to see what would happen.

They stayed inside their room, Steve ploughing through mountains of paperwork and routinely assuring his boss that everything was fine and above board, and Bucky anxiously circled between checking the news on the TV and his texts. Neither of them brought up the touchy subjects-- what the heist meant for Steve’s career, what they were now, or what they would do when they returned to DC.

Steve seemed to be acting almost overly kind and accommodating. Bucky would feel bad if he didn’t know that Steve was just making up for being difficult earlier. The night after the heist, Bucky had only barely mentioned that he was hungry before Steve ran out to some restaurant and returned with enough food for a family of four. 

Both of them were too anxious to even consider initiating anything physical, and Bucky had been distantly worried that their night together might have been a one-time thing. However, that night, neither of them made an attempt to sleep anywhere other than the bed, and during the night they migrated from their respective sides to gently spooning (Bucky being the big spoon, the paunch of his stomach filling up the hollow in Steve’s back as he wrapped his arms around the officer). 

He was woken by a gentle hand shaking his shoulders, and Steve’s crystal blue eyes greeted him. “Good morning. Thanos is on the headlines.” He was holding out his phone.

Bucky immediately grabbed it, scrubbing at his eyes until the small black text came into focus. “WAKANDAN BILLIONAIRE ANNOUNCES BANKRUPTCY” the title proclaimed. 

“‘Following a theft on Thanos’ uninsured millions, the billionaire filed for bankruptcy in a desperate attempt to keep his possessions.’” Bucky read aloud. “That fucker.”

“It’s was lucky his money was in diamonds, after all. If it was in cash, it might have been insured.” 

Bucky continued to read the article, but there was no mention of what would become of Thanos’ medicinal empire, or to whom his holdings would fall. He handed the phone back to Steve. “I can’t risk a call to T’Challa. We’ll have to wait for him to call us.” 

Steve nodded. “The flight’s at 4 p.m. I guess we’ll have to hope he calls us before then.”

Bucky turned on the TV, flipping between various channels singing laments about how terrible it was for Thanos’ entire fortune to be stolen, since the man had been nothing but a shining philanthropist and medical innovator. Steve left again to return with breakfast, and neither of them mentioned the fact that Steve seemed to trust Bucky enough to leave him alone in the apartment. Bucky was so happy with the recent development of things, but he was also terrified that it was all the calm before the storm, that it was only a temporary contentment before things went south forever. He’d been so sure of the outcome of things before, only for everything to be torn away from him and for things to turn out worse than he could have ever anticipated. 

That had happened the last time he’d done a job, in fact. He’d seen the end of the tunnel; the light was in sight, and he’d let down his defenses in relief. Just then the police arrived and caught him directly in the middle of the college exhibit with all the evidence they needed to put him away. The only rectification of the situation was that his friends were able to go free, and he wouldn’t give that up for anything. 

So he wasn’t about to assume that just because Thanos had claimed bankruptcy that they were out of the woods yet. But even more frightening than the possibility of being caught before he ever left the country (which he’d pretty much been counting on, anyway; nothing mattered, as long as Rebecca was safe) was the possibility that once they returned to America, everything between Steve and him would fade. Perhaps incarceration should have been the more concerning issue, but Steve had done so much for the team, and Bucky couldn’t have pulled off the heist without him. He’d set aside his presumptions and risked his safety (and possibly even his job) to defeat Thanos, and that was something that Bucky wouldn’t have thought possible just a week ago. They’d gotten close so quickly in the (mildly) cramped space of their hotel room, and what seemed to be blossoming between them was trust conducive to any relationship. 

Not to mention how Steve made Bucky feel. He’d had such an amazing time when they’d been together. Probably the best sex of his life, in fact. In college, he’d only just discovered he was bi, and he’d been experimenting with everyone that’d been interested. It had been a time of fascinating discovery and adventure, but certainly not one of skill or satisfaction. And the sex in jail had been lackluster, to say the least. Steve seemed perfectly attuned to all of Bucky’s sexual desires, like every fantasy in his head had been sculpted into one man. And maybe best of all, Steve hadn’t even seemed put off by Bucky’s weight (which, judging by how tight his pants were, had only gone  _ up _ since their flight a week ago). 

He put the thoughts out of his mind as Steve returned with a complimentary breakfast from the cafe adjacent to the hotel. Bucky recognized a few items from their meals before, but he was so hungry that it was mostly a delectable blur of courses.

Toward the end of his third plate, he was just starting to get really full (and in need of unbuttoning his pants entirely) when Steve offered the rest of his breakfast.

“Oof, I dunno, buddy. Not even sure I can finish my own.”

Steve, oddly, was a little red, even though Bucky was perfectly comfortable in the balmy temperature of the room. “Come on, I’ve seen you eat more than that,” he challenged.

Bucky sat back a little bit in the one desk chair the room had provided. A small coffee table was on the floor between them, and Steve was perched on the edge of the bed. “Maybe so, but that’s when my pants were… well, looser,” he admitted.

Steve’s eyes flicked down toward his waistband before returning to his eyes. “So unbutton them.” 

Bucky chuckled a little awkwardly. “I’m not trying to come off like a complete slob, here.”

“You’re not.”

“Oh no? You wouldn’t call me eating myself out of my pants slob-like behaviour?”

“No,” Steve replied, avoiding his eyes by looking out of the window. “It seems like vacation-like behaviour.”

“Not sure I’d call this a vacation,” Bucky countered, not quite sure why he was even arguing. The food  _ was _ good, and if he was being honest with himself, he probably had room to finish both their dishes, if he pushed himself a little.

“It’s a vacation from being in jail,” Steve shot back, frankness starling Bucky a little. 

But he laughed, accepting Steve’s plate. “Touche. I could eat a hundred meals and never make up for that travesty of a meal plan.”

“Guess you better get started, then.” 

Bucky found it difficult, once again, to gauge Steve’s meaning. His tone seemed flirtatious, but Bucky couldn’t be more confused. Who flirted over food? 

His dick was definitely on board, though, and when his brain couldn’t think of a response, his hands and mouth took over, loading up another forkful of food and curling his mouth around the bite suggestively. Steve’s mouth fell open as he took in a quick breath, his eyes fluttering. He swallowed audibly. 

Confused, Bucky might be, but stupid, he was certainly not. It seemed- against whatever reason he had left- Steve wanted Bucky to eat more, and all Bucky knew is that he’d do anything to keep Steve’s interest.

Just then, Bucky’s phone rang, making him jump. He checked the screen. “It’s Bruce. Should I take it in the…?” He trailed off, not knowing how much privacy he had while Steve’s cop equipment was in the room. Steve gestured to the hall and Bucky left the room, shutting the door behind him and accepting the call. “Barnes. What’s up?”

“It worked.”

Bucky let out tension in his body that he didn’t even know he’d possessed, relaxing immediately and leaning on the door. “Thank god. What happened?”

“Well, I’m sure you saw that he claimed bankruptcy this morning. He also sold 63% of his shares to keep his estate. He still holds a large part of his company, but with T’Challa and his deal yesterday, T’Challa is now the primary shareholder of all Thanos Inc. accounts.”

“...Which means?” Bucky prompted.

“Which means that T’Challa owns vibranidimaldryl, and as of a business report that will be posted in twenty minutes, that I may or may not have had exclusive access to, he plans on distributing it to the open market so that all hospitals can administer it to their patients at their own discretion.”

“Holy shit, there is a God.”

Bruce laughed. “There just might be, pal. I also heard through the grapevine that an anonymous contributor donated 258 million dollars to a fund dedicated to giving all patients free access to the drug, regardless of insurance.”

Bucky shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That so?”

“Mm-hm. That’s one twelfth of 3 billion dollars, Buck.”

“Oh yeah? Math was never my strong suit.”

“You know, you could have told us this was all for Rebecca. I would’ve worked for free. Everybody would have.”

“I know, Bruce. You’re all excellent people. There’s more than enough money in that fund to support all the people with Rebecca’s condition, and you deserve your cut. I just… I just wanted her to be happy.”

Bruce chuckled. “Well, we’re all happy, now. Everyone except Thanos.”

Bucky grinned. “Amen. I’ll drink to that.” He paused, watching a bird fly across the mid-morning sun in the distance. “You have a safe flight.”

“Yeah-- hey, Buck, I wanted to talk to you about that. I know we’re in the clear here, but I was thinking, it might be best for you not to go back to the U.S, you know? I mean, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did for all of us last time, but I don’t want you to take the fall again. There’s no way that your parole officer is gonna overlook the fact that you just ‘happened’ to be in Wakanda while the country’s largest business man got robbed.”

Bucky thought for a moment. While his parole officer might just overlook the fact, he couldn’t deny that the rest of the entire American law enforcement wouldn’t offer him the same courtesy. “Yeah.”

“I’m  _ serious, _ Bucky. Don’t get on that plane. I don’t care what you do-- fly to Romania, or something. Just get far away and under cover. Build a nice life for yourself. I don’t want to see you on that flight, okay?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“We care about you, Buck. You’ve done more than enough good to make up for one mistake. You deserve your happiness. Just run far away.” Bruce sighed. “Whatever, man. I know you’ll make the right decision. Just… be safe.”

“You too.” Bucky hung up.

Maybe Steve had gotten to him, or maybe it was just his pessimistic past, but Bucky had never actually considered not ending up in jail. It didn’t seem possible that there could be an outcome that involved him living somewhere free and happy. 

And honestly? He didn’t know what happiness looked life, if it didn’t involve Steve.

He opened the door and stepped back inside the room.

“Well?” Steve demanded immediately.

“We’re good to go. T’Challa owns Thanos Inc.”

“Okay… so why don’t you look like a guy who just successfully pulled off a heist?”

Bucky shrugged. “I dunno. Never been successful before, I guess. Not used to the feeling.” He began to pack, avoiding Steve’s eyes. He could still see him out of his peripheral vision, and he was giving him a look dangerously close to pity. Bucky fucking hated being pitied.

At just after 2, Steve gathered his things. “Well. Guess we should get an early start to the airport.”

Bucky nodded, following him out of the door and down to the lobby, where they checked out and the very helpful cashier hailed them a taxi to the airport. Steve was excited, high off the idea of returning home and bouncing with energy. They exited the taxi and collected their bags, and Steve started confidently toward the doors of the Wakandan airport. It was so strange, standing exactly where he’d stood one week ago.

Steve turned around when he realized Bucky wasn’t with him. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Bucky tried futilely to swallow the lump in his throat. “I’m not… I’m not getting on that plane, Steve.”

Steve visibly deflated, arms hanging limply at his side as he dragged his luggage back over to where Bucky stood. “What? What do you mean?” he asked, his voice high-pitched and young-sounding. 

“Come on, Steve. You had to know this day was coming. I’m a criminal. I can’t go back to America, not now.”

“But… you’ll be violating your parole,” Steve muttered dumbly.

Bucky felt angry, angrier than he had a right to be. “Yeah, no shit. What did you honestly expect would happen? You know why I came here, and now I did what I meant to. I can’t just go back and let them arrest me.”

“So you expect me to let you run away?”

“I don’t expect you to do anything,” Bucky responded, his voice dangerously even.

“You asshole,” Steve spat.

“What?” Bucky asked, bemused.

“Was this your whole plan? Seduce me so I could let you escape? What did you, do research on me to find out my type?”

“What? No! Steve, that wasn’t-- that was never… I’m not trying to make you do anything. Falling in love with you wasn’t part of the plan.”

“You can goddamn say that again,” Steve exclaimed, setting down his suitcase to put a hand on his hips. “So, what’s your plan now?”

“I don’t know. You should run, too. I can get someone to cover your. You should be safe-- your twelfth of the 3 billion is being wired to you now, so you could retire and live in Europe, if you want.”

“I don’t want the fucking money, Bucky!”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t know. I thought…”

“What did you think?”

“Well, call me fucking naive, but I kind of thought that me sacrificing everything to help you with your stupid little job would mean something.”

“It  _ did _ , Steve, I swear, it means the world. That’s why I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Well, why don’t we not get caught together?”

Bucky’s brain was trying to keep up with the rollercoaster of emotions. “What do you mean?”

Steve sighed. “You told me that our emotions make us stronger instead of weakening our judgement, right?”

“...Right…”

“Right. So I’m trusting my emotions. You know what they’re telling me right now? They’re telling me that I love you, that I finally have a chance at happiness for the first time in my life, that I finally found something that I fucking believe in, and I’m not going to give that away, not for anything in the world. So I don’t care where we go, federal prison, Canada, Iceland, Europe or whatever-- I’m not leaving you, not ever again. We’re stronger together, and--” Steve’s voice broke, tears springing to his eyes. “And I don’t want to ever be without you.”

Bucky was stunned. “You’re saying… you’re saying you want to run away together? You’d give up being a cop, for me?”

Steve chuckled through his tears. “It’s not like I had all that many delusions of grandeur about it in the first place. We did a good thing, I believe in that. And I did more in one week of criminal activity than I ever did on years on the force. So, yeah, I’m done with being a cop.”

“Wow, okay.” Bucky processed for a moment, and then stepped forward into Steve’s space, brushing away his tears “But, you mean, you really want to go somewhere with me?”

“Well, yeah,” Steve said, leaning his head ever so lightly into Bucky’s touch. “If I’m not mistaken, you said that you love me.”

“Fuck, I did, didn’t I?” Bucky laughed, realizing that he only seemed to be honest with Steve when he was angry. It was something worth looking into. “But, I, uh, think you said you love me too.”

Steve grinned, proud of himself. “Yup. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

“This.” Bucky leaned forward and kissed him deeply, tasting the salty tears on his top lip and feeling the slight stubble that he hadn’t shaved away yet. He pulled back to look in the blond’s eyes. “And I’m gonna buy two tickets to Iceland.”

“Iceland? Who says I want to go to Iceland?” Steve quipped.

“I do. And  _ you  _ said, anywhere I go, you’ll go. So, I pick Iceland. And you’re coming with me.” He tugged Steve toward him with one arm until they were flush, Bucky’s full belly from lunch pressed into Steve’s perfect abs. 

“And where exactly did you get money for plane tickets?”

Bucky wielded a burner credit card. “My twelfth was already deposited in an offshore account. I only have $300,000 remaining, but I think that’s enough for two tickets and to buy us a sheep farm.”

“Sheep, huh?” Steve smiled and kissed Bucky again, lightly. “I guess I always liked sheep.”

Bucky relaxed into the kiss, letting himself relax fully. He felt perfectly safe with Steve, and not even his fear of the future would keep him from enjoying this moment. 

“Hang on,” he said, remember something Steve said in the heat of their argument. “What did you mean, ‘do research on you to find out your type’?”

Steve blushed. “Oh. That was dumb. I just mean… it occurred to me, you’re so perfect that I thought it couldn’t be a coincidence. Like maybe you found out what I was into so you could con me into letting you go.” He reached around Bucky, fondling his ass, not caring about the string of travellers around them. 

“I mean… I’m flattered, but I could stand to lose a little weight,” Bucky remarked, depricatively. “You’re not still worried about me conning you, are you?”

“No way! Even if you are, it backfired, because now I’m just going to follow you to Iceland. And I don’t think you should.”

“Don’t think I should go to Iceland?” 

“No! Don’t think you should… lose weight. I mean, you don’t need to.” Steve was blushing and looking down at Bucky’s middle.

He resisted the urge to suck in. “I’m pretty sure that’s factually untrue, but are you trying to say that you don’t  _ want _ me to?”

Steve avoided answering. “I think you should do whatever you want to do.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Not what I asked.” He titled Steve’s chin up until they were eye to eye, then in dawned on him. “Wait. You’ve been giving me your food for weeks. Do you  _ like  _ me fat?”

Steve’s eyebrows drew together. “Hell, I like  _ you, _ Buck. I’d like you if you wanted to go back to the way you looked in college- which, your long hair really does it for me, if you feel like bringing that back- but, yes. I do like you like this. Which… I kind of thought you knew.”

Bucky laughed. “No, I didn’t know. We make a lot of assumptions. We should… we should probably work on communicating better.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. I’m a little rusty on that, but I want to do my best. A relationship can’t last if we don’t communicate?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so we’re in a relationship now?”

Steve’s eyes went wide. “I mean, not if you don’t want to--”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted. “I’m joking. I love you. Yes, I want to be in a relationship.” He checked his phone. “However, we should probably get a hurry on to the Iceland flight if we want to get out of the country today.”

Steve shook himself into action, picking up his suitcases again. “Yes. Absolutely. Let’s go right now.”

They entered the building, and Bucky used his burner card and a fake name to purchase one-way tickets to Iceland. He noticed Steve casing the building, as he did with all structures. It made him a little sad, but he also felt safe knowing that Steve would certainly notice any type of security that might be onto them. 

It felt too good to be true, boarding their 5 pm flight to Iceland and ordering a ridiculous sized first-class meal at Steve’s request, then drifting off to sleep as he watched the sunset while flying over west Europe. 

Right before he dropped off, Steve worked his hand into Bucky’s, and he gave him a soft squeeze. He wasn’t going to worry about what felt too good to be true. After all, he deserved a happy ending, didn’t he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky said be gay do crimes!   
> I have no idea if diamonds actually wouldn’t be insured, but in the fictional country of Wakanda, anything I say goes. Anyway. If you’re planning to keep your life savings in the form of diamonds in Wakanda, know that you are not exempt from theft.  
> Okay, so the last chapter of this kind of wrapped everything up a little /too/ neatly, but whatever. I want to write a fic where everything’s pretty and nothing hurts.  
> Also, I didn’t plan on everything ending this nicely so soon, and my original plan of the book had the big heist happening halfway through, and the rest of the chapters being plotless feedist trash. So, since I definitely want to write that, I think I’m making that a part 2 to this story- first chapter of that going up this Saturday (the 9th).   
> Also also, if you have any ideas about what the sequel should be called, please feel free to leave a suggestion in a comment. I am not good at planning things.

**Author's Note:**

> I only have the first chapter written out, but I was impatient to post it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> I do have the whole plot diagrammed, though, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to finish it. I might update a little irregularly. Also, I don't know a ton about paroles and heists and laws, but I'm doing the best I can to research. Feel free to let me know if I get something wrong in a comment. You can find me on tumblr @star-thief to yell at me if I don't update enough.


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